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Indigenous People
Traditional Practices and Modern Development
Edited by Sanjeet Kumar
and Manjula Bangalore Lakshminarayana
Edited by Sanjeet Kumar
and Manjula Bangalore Lakshminarayana
Indige nous People - Traditional Practices and Modern Development provides a
comprehensive overview of indigenous people, their traditional knowledge, and
contemporary advancement in a variety of areas. It also discusses the need to
preserve indigenous peoples’ traditional knowledge in the present context and how
to document and restore it. Additionally, it oers baseline data for developing plans
for sustainable development and good governance. is book is a useful resource for
academics, researchers, students, government agencies, non-governmental groups, and
policymakers.components of the Earth. Only indigenous and native pillars can save us
globally. erefore, at any cost, the world must start a new era with indigenous people
and their traditional knowledge. is book is a microscopic aspect of an anthropological
study of the evolution, culture, rituals, traditional practices, and modern development of
indigenous populations, globally speaking. It also enlightens the readers about the varied
means of their livelihood and their social organization, religion, art, and music through
three broad sections. e book will be quite useful for students, researchers, intellectuals,
and general readers throughout the world. I wish for a grand success that will be a source
of inspiration in many ways and a life-changing fount in the contemporary world.
Published in London, UK
© 2024 IntechOpen
© JLV-Photos / iStock
ISBN 978-0-85466-170-1
Indigenous People - Traditional Practices and Modern Development
Indigenous People -
Traditional Practices and
Modern Development
Edited by Sanjeet Kumar
and Manjula Bangalore Lakshminarayana
Published in London, United Kingdom
Indigenous People - Traditional Practices and Modern Development
http//dxdoiorg//intechopen
Edited by Sanjeet Kumar and Manjula Bangalore Lakshminarayana
Contributors
Ndjounguep Juscar Sanath Kumar N Susanta Kumar Biswal Sanjeet Kumar Adine Gavazzi Anna Siri
Olawale R Olaopa Saheed Ogundare Ntshengedzeni Evans Netshivhambe Nathuram Chaudhary Ude
Bassey Obeten Joshua Mawere Ndwamato Walter Tshamano
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Meet the editors
Sanjeet Kumar is the founder and CEO of Ambika Prasad
Research Foundation (APRF), Odisha, India. He has worked
with many Indian organizations and institutes and the Forest,
Environment, and Climate Change Department, Odisha, India.
His research focuses on tribal communities, indigenous tradi-
tional knowledge, traditional therapeutic systems, traditional
foods, plant taxonomy, medicinal plants, biodiversity conser-
vation, restoration of floral wealth, management plans for protected areas, threat-
ened taxa, phytochemistry, and antimicrobial activities of ethnobotanical plants.
He has written 20 books, several book chapters, and around 150 research papers.
He has supervised fifty MSc students and is currently guiding five Ph.D. scholars.
He has organized several national and international seminars and awareness pro-
grams on medicinal plants and tribal cultures.
Dr. Manjula Bangalore Lakshminarayana started her career as
a lecturer at Vijaya College, India. She has 36 years of teaching
experience and is currently an associate professor and head of
the Department of Botany, SJR College, India. She obtained an
MSc (gold medal), MPhil, and Ph.D. from Bangalore University,
India. She has many research publications and book chapters in
peer-reviewed journals to her credit. She has delivered lec-
tures on IGNOU Gyanvani FM 106.4, the only educational radio channel in India.
She has conducted interviews on scientific topics and given voiceovers for many
scientific documentaries in Bengaluru Door Darshana Kendra. Dr. Manjula is a life
member of many professional bodies.
Preface XI
Chapter 1 1
Indigenous Knowledge and Participative Cultural Heritage Mapping
in the Ebo Forest in Cameroon
by Ndjounguep Juscar
Chapter 2 19
Indigenous Practices by Tribal Communities of Bonai Forest Division,
Odisha, India: A Cause of Forest Fire, Experts’ Opinions and Impacts
on Bio-Wealth
by Sanath Kumar N, Susanta Kumar Biswal and Sanjeet Kumar
Chapter 3 29
Spirits and Spoils: Matter, Memory and the Living Culture of Human
Remains in the Andes and the Amazon
by Adine Gavazzi and Anna Siri
Chapter 4 41
Traditional Leadership, Indigenous Knowledge, and Local Governance:
Implications for Good Governance and Sustainable Development Agenda
by Olawale R. Olaopa and Saheed Ogundare
Chapter 5 61
Living the Heritage through Indigenous Music Competitions
by Ntshengedzeni Evans Netshivhambe
Chapter 6 79
Positionality of Native People of Nepal from Indigeneity to Modernity
by Nathuram Chaudhary
Chapter 7 95
Indigenous Rituals, Panacea for Peace Building, Conflict Management
and National Development in Africa
by Ude Bassey Obeten
Contents
II
Chapter 8 115
The Role of African Indigenous Knowledge Systems in Achieving Restorative
Justice among the Vhavenda of South Africa
by Joshua Mawere and Ndwamato Walter Tshamano
Preface
The contemporary world serves as an example of progress, posing several challenges
to biotic elements, abiotic components, and all facets of human existence. The main
threat to humanity in the current situation is climate change. Although there are con-
nections between humans and nature on all scales, studies to this date have concen-
trated on government, industry, technology, demography, and economic patterns. It
has also evaluated the long-term analysis of positive and negative influences driving
pandemics, new health challenges, and climate change.
During the COVID-19 epidemic, people all over the world became aware of and
validated the limitations of contemporary technologies. As a result, people began
to appreciate nature, natural goods, tribal people, and their indigenous traditional
wisdom. By utilizing the lost and neglected knowledge of indigenous communities in
the fields of health, agriculture, the food industry, daily lifestyles, old technologies
in various contexts, documentation, conservation, and restoration of traditional
knowledge in our lifestyle, people began to return to nature.
The study of traditional indigenous knowledge is highly relevant in the current context.
It is important to conduct thorough research on how urbanization and other factors
are destroying indigenous traditional knowledge. For global academics, addressing
the cultural relevance of indigenous peoples around the world is a difficult but crucial
undertaking. According to this perspective, Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and
Modern Development offers reliable information about indigenous knowledge and how
traditions have changed over time.
I hope the book is a huge success because it will be helpful to scholars and international
politicians.
Sanjeet Kumar
Biodiversity and Conservation Lab,
Ambika Prasad Research Foundation,
Cuttack, India
Manjula Bangalore Lakshminarayana
Sri Jagadguru Renukacharya College of Science, Arts and Commerce,
Bengaluru, India
XII
Preface
The contemporary world serves as an example of progress, posing several challenges
to biotic elements, abiotic components, and all facets of human existence. The main
threat to humanity in the current situation is climate change. Although there are con-
nections between humans and nature on all scales, studies to this date have concen-
trated on government, industry, technology, demography, and economic patterns. It
has also evaluated the long-term analysis of positive and negative influences driving
pandemics, new health challenges, and climate change.
During the COVID-19 epidemic, people all over the world became aware of and
validated the limitations of contemporary technologies. As a result, people began
to appreciate nature, natural goods, tribal people, and their indigenous traditional
wisdom. By utilizing the lost and neglected knowledge of indigenous communities in
the fields of health, agriculture, the food industry, daily lifestyles, old technologies
in various contexts, documentation, conservation, and restoration of traditional
knowledge in our lifestyle, people began to return to nature.
The study of traditional indigenous knowledge is highly relevant in the current context.
It is important to conduct thorough research on how urbanization and other factors
are destroying indigenous traditional knowledge. For global academics, addressing
the cultural relevance of indigenous peoples around the world is a difficult but crucial
undertaking. According to this perspective, Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and
Modern Development offers reliable information about indigenous knowledge and how
traditions have changed over time.
I hope the book is a huge success because it will be helpful to scholars and international
politicians.
Sanjeet Kumar
Biodiversity and Conservation Lab,
Ambika Prasad Research Foundation,
Cuttack, India
Manjula Bangalore Lakshminarayana
Sri Jagadguru Renukacharya College of Science, Arts and Commerce,
Bengaluru, India
1
Chapter 1
Indigenous Knowledge and
Participative Cultural Heritage
Mapping in the Ebo Forest in
Cameroon
NdjounguepJuscar
Abstract
The populations in the EBO forest in Cameroon, mainly the Banen tribe with
4clans in about 47 villages, had to leave their homes and communities behind in the
years 1960s because of post-independence war. The identification and mapping of
their cultural heritage is today a step to advocate for the government to facilitate their
return in their customary land. Participatory mapping techniques use with their con-
sent, of their cultural heritage, was done to understand their customary land in which
they participated in the data collection and validation. The results show that the
resettlement efforts, of the Banen people, often claimed since the 1970s is to prioritize
immediate needs to return to their ancestral land. The Cameroon government, who
had earlier proposed the area for conservation because of its biodiversity richness, has
not seen the need to reinstall these people in an area of intact forest. These communi-
ties, through participatory mapping, have addressed the loss of their cultural heritage
and need for careful planning and coordination. Since cultural heritage plays a vital
role in defining the identity of displaced “Banen” communities, they look discon-
nected. It is crucial for the government to recognize and respect their cultural identity
to ensure that their heritage is preserved.
Keywords: Ebo forest, communities, cultural heritage, resettlement, advocate
1. Introduction
Cultural heritage issues for the resettlement of displaced populations in the Ebo
forest area are a challenge because they link to loss of heritage, cultural identity,
competing priorities, intercultural dynamics, and lack of resources and expertise
[1]. There is a need for proper planning that incorporates cultural heritage into legal
frameworks, policies, and development plans to ensure its protection and integration
within resettlement initiatives.
The unstable political situation of African countries during the year 1950 brought
a lot of displacement among rural and urban populations in search of peaceful areas.
Colonialism has to ensure population considered its ideology before independence.
1
Chapter 1
Indigenous Knowledge and
Participative Cultural Heritage
Mapping in the Ebo Forest in
Cameroon
NdjounguepJuscar
Abstract
The populations in the EBO forest in Cameroon, mainly the Banen tribe with
4clans in about 47 villages, had to leave their homes and communities behind in the
years 1960s because of post-independence war. The identification and mapping of
their cultural heritage is today a step to advocate for the government to facilitate their
return in their customary land. Participatory mapping techniques use with their con-
sent, of their cultural heritage, was done to understand their customary land in which
they participated in the data collection and validation. The results show that the
resettlement efforts, of the Banen people, often claimed since the 1970s is to prioritize
immediate needs to return to their ancestral land. The Cameroon government, who
had earlier proposed the area for conservation because of its biodiversity richness, has
not seen the need to reinstall these people in an area of intact forest. These communi-
ties, through participatory mapping, have addressed the loss of their cultural heritage
and need for careful planning and coordination. Since cultural heritage plays a vital
role in defining the identity of displaced “Banen” communities, they look discon-
nected. It is crucial for the government to recognize and respect their cultural identity
to ensure that their heritage is preserved.
Keywords: Ebo forest, communities, cultural heritage, resettlement, advocate
1. Introduction
Cultural heritage issues for the resettlement of displaced populations in the Ebo
forest area are a challenge because they link to loss of heritage, cultural identity,
competing priorities, intercultural dynamics, and lack of resources and expertise
[1]. There is a need for proper planning that incorporates cultural heritage into legal
frameworks, policies, and development plans to ensure its protection and integration
within resettlement initiatives.
The unstable political situation of African countries during the year 1950 brought
a lot of displacement among rural and urban populations in search of peaceful areas.
Colonialism has to ensure population considered its ideology before independence.
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
2
Most of these cause civil war in different countries. The case of Cameroon, a central
African country was unique. A civil war with some warriors who declared war against
colonialism. In order to gain their freedom, the fight was mostly in the forest where
France had to track what was named “les maquisar.” The leaders were seen by the
transition state at the time as wanted and any of them that were caught were killed in
public space. As the war between the “maquisar” and the colonialism/state was going
strong, the state saw the need to evacuate people from villages where the warriors
were hiding. The proposed displacement was for a period of time but till date, the new
government never thing how these people, could regain their ancestral home.
Within this situation, the area where people have been displaced has become,
after 50years, a virgin forest. Here, a lot of interest started growing from the state
and other international conservationists. The example of the Ebo forest in Cameroon
is more expressive. While the displaced population was brought to resettle in some
areas, the Ebo forest, the land of “Banen” and “Bassa”, was proposed for a protected
area (PA) in 2006 because of the presence of highly endangered species (primates)
in the landscape. While research where still going on, the classification of the area
as a protected area has not until 2019, been approved by the state. In early 2020, the
proposed area for PA was transferred for logging concession by the state. These com-
munities lobby for coveting of their ancestral home for forest exploitation.
This poor land use planning method, is against the cultural rule and sustain-
able development of local communities. Land use planning through participatory
mapping, is crucial for environmental, social, and economic development. It is also
essential for the empowerment of local people and for securing land tenure and is an
instrument for securing consistency, continuity, and alignment between national and
local development objectives with respect to the use of natural resources, investments
in infrastructure, production, and conservation.
Emerging conflicts/overlapping land tenure, in the Yabassi key biodiversity area,
reduce the effective impact of the cultural heritage and sustainable investments by
local communities. Land use planning and secure tenure are seen as foundations for
Cameroon’s Rural Development Strategy, and also a promising tool to reconcile such
interests in such a way as to redress the balance between global, national, and local
priorities. Therefore, there is a need for methodological integration and the develop-
ment of new techniques for land use amelioration. Hence, the concept of Free Prior
Informed Consent (FPIC) especially by the villages and communities involved.
Cameroon’s 2011 land use planning law provides a supportive framework for
modern, inclusive, multi-disciplinary, and cross-sectoral planning [2–6]. Principles
defined by law are broadly in line with the generally accepted principles for land use
planning though they lack clarity on aspects of obtaining free prior informed consent
(FPIC), gender equality, and recognition of customary tenure. Although the legal
framework in Cameroon does not explicitly call for the consent of indigenous or local
communities with regard to development on their lands, numerous legal instruments
and processes form the institutional basis for the free, prior, and informed compo-
nents of FPIC. For example, the Framework Law on Environmental Management
1961 calls for local stakeholder consultations within environmental impact assess-
ments, and the Orientation Law for Land Use Planning and Sustainable Development
2012 calls for local participation in all decisions regarding land allocation and use.
Participatory land-use planning is an important step in ensuring that local com-
munities are engaged in negotiating development schemes and that such negotiations
are transparent. Local land use plans prepared through a well-informed, participatory
process are therefore proposed as a potential building block for the implementation of
3
Indigenous Knowledge and Participative Cultural Heritage Mapping in the Ebo Forest…
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1003012
development strategies, and sustainable and equitable rural development contribut-
ing to progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals that will best meet the
needs of the people [2, 5, 6].
2. Cultural heritage in the Ebo forest area and process of integrating local
knowledge in the mapping
2.1 Ebo forest area and village’s cultural heritage
It’s comforting to know that the Ebo Forest’s communities have a rich cultural
legacy and value derived from their ancestral setting. Many of these settlements
were removed during the second part of the twentieth century, around the time of
Cameroon’s independence, and their early history can only be conjectured based on
oral traditions that are not well documented. Many of the communities have been
regrouped with some other historic villages to form new groups.
Despite the fact that some villages have moved out of the Ebo forest, many mem-
bers of the community still have strong personal ties to it and regard it as ancestral
territory. Prior to Christianity, each family was said to have a sacred site in the forest,
marked by a stone or a tree, where they performed their religious rituals. At least one
species of crinum lily plant was said to be used for rituals at each location. Prior to
Christianity, each family was said to have a sacred site in the forest, marked by a stone
or a tree, where they performed their religious rituals. At least one species of crinum
lily plant was said to be used for rituals at each location.
On February 23, 2022, the Association of Chiefs of the Ebo Forest Area gathered to
remind themselves that the cultural values present in their land tenure area are those
that connect them to their ancestral origin and that these values must be preserved
and passed down from generation to generation. These values include cultural sites
(Sacred forests, Sacred trees), ancient buildings, monuments, tombstones, artifacts,
cemeteries, and other cultural sites that affirm their identity as a people while also
providing a comprehensive framework for the preservation of their cultural values,
beliefs, and way of life.
On the one hand, the chiefs taught to better preserve these cultural values, and
they should be identified and rehabilitated, on the other hand, the best way to
preserve these values is to collect and share information in order to integrate cultural
governance into natural resource management policies for the Ebo landscape com-
munities’ sustainable development. Figure 1 shows the characteristics of cultural
heritage.
3. Process of integrating local knowledge in the mapping of cultural
heritage
The “Mapping for Rights” method developed by the Rainforest Foundation and
supported by MINEPAT in Cameroon is indicated in the process. It is a 7-step process:
(1)identification and Free Prior Informed Consent (FPIC), (2) prospection, (3)
Training of the local mappers, (4) Data collection by the local mappers, (5) Data
treatment, (6) validation of the data, and (7) transfer of data [2, 6, 7].
In addition, to obtain all necessary information, we used: focus group (to collect
information on health, education, village organizational structure and history, and
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
land tenure), semi-structured questionnaires with all households per village (to
obtain socio-economic data (population, numbers of birth/death for the year 2022,
gender, age distribution of the population within and outside the community, types of
farming activities, other livelihood activities like NTFPs exploitation, annual output,
consumption rate and transportation means, etc.).
Community sensitization meetings were held to identify sensitized communities
about land tenure rights and the role of local communities in the documentation
of their land uses in order to inform regional and national land use plans. The local
governance of land and resources was done using villages’ Venn diagram and problem
tree. Spatial data were also collected using a Garmin GPS.
. Participatory mapping of community’s cultural heritage within the Ebo forest
landscape
The participatory mapping strategy involved the facilitator bringing the stake-
holders or representative groups together to perform the mapping exercise. For this to
be done, the village had to freely consent, support, and also agree to participate in the
process. The strategy involved the following major steps [8].
3.1.1 Information
In which the community leaders (key stakeholders) were briefed on the project,
its importance, methods, expectations, and uses. This step sought to inform the
major stakeholders on the project and obtain their approval and commitment. When
this was done, we then moved to the next step which was to organise stakeholder
sensitization meeting.
Figure 1.
Cultural heritage structure for resettlement villages.
Indigenous Knowledge and Participative Cultural Heritage Mapping in the Ebo Forest…
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1003012
3.1.2 Prospection
The community as a whole was presented to the project, its objectives, approach,
and importance. Here the goal was to provide the community with all the information
needed to enable their free prior and informed consent (FPIC) to participate in the
project. All sections of the community were involved (traditional authorities, women,
men, young people, different ethnic groups, etc.) and sufficient time was allocated
to work with each specific group. Community diagnostic tools were also used to
understand the dynamics of the community and also collect basic information on the
community (Figure ).
Six (6) community mappers, per village, were then selected by their own com-
munity with support from the facilitation team to ensure that they represented
the different components of the community, and the different types of knowledge
about ownership, use, and control of community land and resources as well as
possible. Community mappers play a key role in making sure the community map
is accurately presented, but also those other members of the community fully
understand the final map. An activity timeframe was proposed and validated by
the community.
3.1.3 Training of community mappers
Project facilitators and the GIS technician facilitated the training of the commu-
nity mappers. The selected community mappers were briefed on the importance and
need of the process. Mappers were trained on the elaboration of a participatory map,
the use of the GPS for data collection, and primate identification. The training was
done in theory and practice.
During the theoretical phase, they were trained on map elaboration (elements
of a map, different map types, ground map production, transferring the map to
paper, etc.) (Figure ).
Figure 2.
Prospection meeting in Socke.
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
After the training on map elaboration, the mappers were trained on how to use
the GPS in data collection, the use of the GPS and GPS tablets, the collection of
waypoints, and the type of features to collect data on for the production of a par-
ticipatory map. At this stage, the GPS data collection sign guide sheet containing
all the signs and symbols (Key) for the collection of data for the production of the
participatory map was distributed to the participants after which the facilitators
progressively interpreted each of the signs and symbols to the participants. The
mappers were then taken out for the practice phase. They were drilled over and over
and made to practice over and over until they got the procedures right and produced
accurate results (Figure ).
3.1.4 Data collection
Using the ground map as a reference, community mappers, the GIS expert, and
project facilitators identified the different features, areas, roads, and paths to fol-
low for data collection. The community mappers were divided into three groups for
the spatial data collection. At the end of each of the three data collection days, the
mappers met to collate, cross-check, and verify the veracity of the data collected after
which the data was then uploaded into a laptop for proper storage and future use.
Figure 4.
Practice of spatial data collection using GPS.
Figure 3.
Training of community mappers.
Indigenous Knowledge and Participative Cultural Heritage Mapping in the Ebo Forest…
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1003012
3.1.4.1 Characterization of the socio-economic level of the population
Focused group discussions were held and semi-structured questionnaires were
administered to obtain socio-economic data. Information was also obtained at the
various community meetings during the mapping process. Discussions with key
informants were held to obtain desired information on the livelihood and social
aspects of the community.
3.1.4.2 Identify land uses and elaborate land use map
The different land uses were identified and communicated by the community
members. This was done in the process of elaborating the ground map.
3.1.4.3 Elaboration of the ground map
The GIS technician was guided by the chief and the population during the ground
map elaboration process. Bold markers of different colors were used to represent dif-
ferent features (roads, houses, rivers, farms, primates’ position, ancient settlements,
and other infrastructure). Participants were given enough time to react and contrib-
ute during the process (Figure ).
3.1.5 Data treatment and map production
After the 3days of data collection, the data was treated by the GIS expert in
unison with the community mappers. Attribute data like names of rivers, streams
and neighboring villages, primate species, etc. was obtained and confirmed by
community mappers. After treating and incorporating the data and features, a first
draft was produced and handed to the community mappers for verification, remarks,
and corrections before the production of the final map. Remarks and changes were
incorporated as per the corrections (Figure ).
3.1.6 Map and data validation
The map validation was done in two phases; first, by the chief and then by the
entire community. Both phases took place in the chief’s residence in Ibompoi on
Figure 5.
Elaboration of the ground map.
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
the4thof March 2022. The first validation took place in the morning at 10am and the
second at 5pm in the evening after both parties had made their remarks and correc-
tions which were also immediately incorporated. The final map was then printed out
and handed to the chief of the village (Figure ).
. History and cultural heritage in the Ebo forest landscape
. History of the Banen people from the Ebo forest
According to ethnologists such as Ydelette DUGAST and Reverend Pasteur Dr.
Pierre MAHEND BITIND, the Banen is the plural of MUNEN, meaning noble
man endowed with spiritual, material, and moral wealth. They are an acephalous
people, highly allergic to the notion of chief or commander. They were led by a
patriarch, a guide who was often a seer whose role was to watch over the tribe and
guide its destiny. Jealous of his independence and dignity, each Munen liked to
perch on his own little hill, where he was the only Chief. This distinctive mentality
or cultural attitude forced other peoples to consider each of them as an IFEYU, i.e.,
“a free man” [9].
Figure 7.
Chief and community members with validated map.
Figure 6.
Data treatment and map verification by community mappers.
Indigenous Knowledge and Participative Cultural Heritage Mapping in the Ebo Forest…
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1003012
The name Banen is said to have been given to them by their neighbors (Bassa,
Bakoko, etc.) for their character and behavior. Settled in Cameroon around the sixth
century, they are one of the oldest peoples. According to Father Angelbert MVENG,
their origins lie in the Noun Valley.
The Banen are a homogeneous group, not separated by any other ethnic group.
The administrative division that took place in 1930 is the only thorn in the side ofthe
Banen people. This division split the Banen into two regions: Centre and Littoral,
into two departments: Nkam and Mbam (now Mbam and Inoubou), and into two
Arrondissements: Ndikinimeki and Yingui.
Traditionally, the Banen are grouped together in large blocks called Canton.
. Typology of cultural heritage and their impact on the changes in forest land
cover and land use
Before the independence war of the 1960s, the population where settled principally
in 03 quarters, Mapombi (chiefs’ quarter), Mamanyoi, and Massok. The archeologi-
cal features that can be found there are old graves, old houses, and fruit trees like
mango, guava… These archeological features (especially old graves) constitute cultural
heritage for the community members and need to be conserved (Table ).
The most dominant cultural heritage in the landscape is “grave.” The “banen” cul-
ture like the “bassa” its neighbor, likes conserving and securing the grave of its family
members around their family compound. It has a very ancient value to them and they
always watch and clean the grave. With no road for frequent movement, they had to
abandon them in the forest (Figure ).
Apart from the “grave that they value more, they have other cultural sites like
abandoned villages, old markets, old churches, old chief palace, old market prison,
and old settlement.” Additionally, there are natural sites like the cave (where people
Type of cultural activities Quantity
Cave 41.70
Chief palace 13 5.53
Church 23 9.79
Grave 125 53.19
Market 31.28
Old prison 10.43
Old setlement 14 5.96
Sacred hill 14 5.96
Sacred forest 31.28
Sacred rock 20.85
Sacred site 72.98
Sacred tree 19 8.09
Vestige 72.98
Table 1.
Type of indigenous cultural heritage in the Ebo forest landscape.
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
were hiding during the Civil War), the sacred forest, the sacred site, sacred tree,
sacred hill, and sacred rocks, where the village’s cultural practices were made.
. Sample cultural heritage and displaced communities in the Ebo forest
landscape
The archeological features found in the community’s customary tenure are the Ifoko
old market, old Chief palace, old secret forest, cemeteries, tombs, old health center, old
playground, old plantation, and old settlement. There is also an ancestral bell that was
used by the Union de Eglise Baptiste du Cameroun (UEBC) and an old trap.
The listed items A is an old pot, B and C are ancient homes, D is old lamps, E is old
pots, and F is an olds trap. Old abandoned dwellings, the chief’s palace, tombs, sacred
sites, caves, and old quarters are all cultural features of the community (Figure ).
Figure 8.
Proportion of indigenous cultural heritage in the Ebo forest landscape.
Figure 9.
Artifact found in the forest during participatory mapping.
Indigenous Knowledge and Participative Cultural Heritage Mapping in the Ebo Forest…
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1003012
The cultural heritage signs are distributed in the landscape per type and according
to communities.
. Spatial distribution of cultural heritage and value of the Ebo forest displaced
and living villages
The data collected by the local communities within their customary land on
their cultural heritage were mapped and it shows the spatial distribution within the
landscape. Although villages do not have the same type of cultural heritage, there are
common cultural heritage signs like graves. We found in some abandoned villages
sites called “historical relics” where people have left because of either inaccessibility,
civil war, or disaster (Figures –).
In Figure , we found in and customary land of an abandoned village several
cultural activities and heritage like the “Halakata sacred forest,” the old Churches, and
the old baptism site during the colonial period.
Figure is for the Ndikbanamouan Village where the Chief and the notable
reside out of the customary land and are advocating to the government to create and
maintain a road to facilitate “their returning back home.”
Figure indicates the spatial distribution of cultural activities type that are of the
cultural heritage of the local communities.
The customary land data were also mapped, indicating the understanding and
mastering of their socio-cultural belonging. Most of the government land allocations,
like the council forest, and forest management unit overlap with their customary
land. Since those land allocation reduces communities access to those areas, it also
Figure 10.
Participatory land use and archeological feature.
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
Figure 11.
Cultural activities around the Ebo forest landscape.
Figure 12.
Customary land and distribution of cultural heritage.
Indigenous Knowledge and Participative Cultural Heritage Mapping in the Ebo Forest…
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1003012
limits their access to their cultural site/ relics for some cultural event. Some of the
cultural events, like the local dances, are being disappeared (Figure ).
Communities and related forest dependence cultural activities mapping.
. Contribution of cultural value for sustainable development of rural
population in the Ebo landscape
Part of an ongoing memorial crisis [10] in Cameroon, Banen’s mobilizations
against the Ebo forest classification depend on the instrumentalization of conscious
and unconscious representations. These stem from a series of incidents affecting the
project’s neighboring populations in the departments of Nkam, Sanaga Maritime,
and Mbam and Inoubou between 1963 and 2017. While re-readings of the 1963 Banen
peasant gatherings in urban centers helped to construct the representation of an
Ebo “forced exile” following the war of independence, the rejection of a national
park project in the forest in 2006 helped to crystallize a Banen identity around this
territory.
“Cahier d’un retour au pays natal,” this is the story of a people, the Banens. They
left their land in the late 1950s. Historians consider this to be the period of the
maquis. Leaving their territory for another where they would find shelter, calm, and
security. The destiny of a population then estimated at 10,000 people was turned
upside down. But today, hope is reborn. No more maquis. People can go home. And
that’s what happened on Saturday, May 13 in Ndogbiakat. “After being evicted during
the maquis war, these populations were given access to limited portions of land.
Today, we’re fighting to get them back home,” says Samuel Dieudonné Moth, execu-
tive chairman of the Forêt d’Ebo development committee.
Figure 13.
Cultural activities in Indickminikon I village.
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
A large number of people from different backgrounds, including Njombe-Penja,
PK30, Bonepoupa from Moufon Indikeboum, Bikong, and Malibot, began the
resettlement process.
This is partly due to the actions of the Ebo Forest Development Committee. The
committee succeeded in getting a logging company to take charge of tracing around
40km of road, 30km of which has already been completed.
“This road represents development. It will enable people who were evicted
some sixty years ago to return home. But it must not be an open door to wild
sawing or poaching,” explains Che Patrick Ngwashi, Prefect of the Nkam region
(Figure ) [11].
As part of the problem of large-scale land grabbing in Cameroon, the Ebo
development conflict allows us to question local development as a political issue,
using the tools of local geopolitics [12]. This geopolitical approach makes it possible
to place at the heart of this local conflict, the crisis of the idea of the general inter-
est [13, 14]: it corresponds to the loss of the state monopoly in the management of
Figure 14.
Participatory land use and archeological feature in Ndikolob village.
Indigenous Knowledge and Participative Cultural Heritage Mapping in the Ebo Forest…
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1003012
forest massifs to the benefit of a complex and dynamic system of actors in a forest
decentralization. We will analyze the mobilization of local populations against the
forestry project, with a view to preserving traditional land rights in the name of
local development.
The legalization of the “MUNEN-Retour aux sources” association under receipt
n°187/2020/RDA/C19/SAAJP, took place in Douala on May 26, 2020 [15]. It resulted
from the plural dynamics within the “Les Banen disent NON” collective during
the rejected development conflict over the park project. A series of constraints in
the Banen collective action against the classification of the Ebo forest lands con-
tributed to the substitution of a platform logic by another associative logic from
April2020.
The development of conflicts in the Ebo landscape reveals the failure of partici-
patory mechanisms experimented by development agencies in support of national
bodies and NGOs from various backgrounds [16] in Cameroon.
. Conclusion
Issues related to cultural heritage using indigenous knowledge play a vital role
in recognizing and mapping the historical range of cultural values that belong to a
particular group. The loss of cultural heritage can lead to a sense of disconnection and
displacement. It is crucial to recognize and respect the cultural identity of these popu-
lations and ensure that their heritage is preserved and valued during the resettlement
process. The people, in about 48 villages, of the Ebo forest population who, since a
decade have been out of their ancestral land wish to regain their land. The land has a
lot of resources which has left the government for its allocation and classification as
a state forest. The population wanted the classification to respect their sociocultural
heritage within the landscape. The participatory mapping done within this paper is
a tool that helps to understand communities’ customary land, their local governance
initiative, and problem trees for advocacy.
A lot of movement for advocacy using the communities’ participatory tools has
helped the government to understand the way of integrating local communities into
the management of their cultural heritage through workshop exchanges and local
administration visit to inquire more about their need. It is now recognized that the
population needs to return to their ancestral land and need their cultural features to
cave from any land occupation.
Figure 15.
Banen communities during administrative visit in Lognanga clan https://www.hekok.org/254/cameroun-les-
banens-ne-sont-pas-des-sawas.html.
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
16
Author details
NdjounguepJuscar
AJEMALEBU Self Help, Ebo Forest Research Project, University of Ngaoundere,
LimbeSW,Cameroon, Cameroon
*Address all correspondence to: ndjounguep@gmail.com; info@ajesh.org
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the WRI with Global Forest Watch (GFW) Small Grant project that
enables engaging communities in sustainable management of biodiversity in the
Yabassi KBA. Thanks to the Biopama project and the Ebo Forest Research Project
collaboration, which has added additional data on spatial land-use planning for the
achievement of this paper. Thanks to the Forestry authority from Nkam and Mungo
Division for their participation in the scope of enhancing monitoring of deforesta-
tion alert. And thanks to the communities around the Ebo Forest landscape to have
participated in data collection for the elaboration of this chapter.
© 2023 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of
the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0),
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original work is properly cited.
Indigenous Knowledge and Participative Cultural Heritage Mapping in the Ebo Forest…
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1003012
17
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19
Chapter 2
Indigenous Practices by Tribal
Communities of Bonai Forest
Division, Odisha, India: A Cause of
Forest Fire, Experts’ Opinions and
Impacts on Bio-Wealth
Sanath KumarN, Susanta KumarBiswal and SanjeetKumar
Abstract
Globally, forest fires are a major cause for concern. In recent decades, forest fires
have increased in frequency and severity worldwide, and they are now recognized as a
major issue at the interface between the biosphere and atmosphere. The biogeochemical
cycle, atmospheric composition, ecosystem structure, animal populations, microbial
and insect diversity, and floras are all severely impacted by forest fires. As a result, in the
Bonai Forest Division of Odisha, India, an effort has been made to comprehend the loss
of biodiversity, gather expert viewpoints and record a tribal habit that also contributes to
forest fires. Present observations revealed that there is need of much awareness among
the communities regarding causes and impacts of forest fire on ecosystem, tribal life,
biodiversity and need to take a step for mitigating the problems with communities.
Keywords: forest fire, biodiversity loss, opinions, indigenous community, tribal food,
wild mushrooms
1. Introduction
It is necessary to address properly the causes to mitigate the issue as per boundary. In
this commentary, authors glimpse the relationship between forest tree and mushroom
collection, which is a cause of forest fire along other man-made causes. The study
recommends that there is need to make a scientific strategy to mitigate the issue along
with providing food and livelihood to the community. There are 328 million hectares
of forest cover in India, with 68 million hectares of tropical moist and dry deciduous
vegetation that is prone to fire. However, there is a scarcity of data on the effects of forest
fires on various dimensions. Between autumn and summer, deciduous forest floors are
covered in dense leaf litter, providing ideal conditions for human-caused forest fires.
Controlled fires replace nutrients to the soil, thereby promoting good regeneration of
primary floral species [1]. Odisha saw huge fires across the state in 2021, resulting in
wildlife and biodiversity losses as well as forest timber losses [2]. There is still some
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
uncertainty about the actual impact of frequent forest fires on floral and faunal diversity
in fire burnt areas. Man-made forest fire, whether intentional or unintentional, is always
worse than controlled fire [3]. Therefore, it is vital to determine the influence of these
fires on floral and faunal wealth, as well as the regeneration of plant species in the areas
where they occurred. With this in mind, a comparative study of floral and faunal wealth
was conducted in the seven ranges of the Bonai Forest Division (BFD), Odisha, India,
between fire-burned forest areas in 2021 and those areas that were free of forest fire from
2019 to 2021. The study on traditional practice of indigenous communities and how their
life got affected due to forest fire was also carried out and presented here.
. Study areas
Bonai Forest Division (Figure ) located in Sundargarh district of Odisha state,
India, is known by the presence of deciduous vegetation of the Chhota Nagpur Plateau
in the Deccan Peninsular Biogeographic Zone. It is situated in the North-Western part
of Odisha state in Sundargarh district. It spreads over an area of 2934.21km2. It enjoys
the landscape of the Chhota Nagpur plateau of the Deccan Peninsular Biogeographic
Zone. Bonai Forest Division has diverse vegetation like Moist peninsular sal forest,
Dry peninsular sal forest, Northern dry mixed deciduous forest, dry bamboo brakes
and Orissa tropical semi-evergreen forest. Administratively, Bonai Forest Division has
seven ranges, namely Barsuan, Bonai, Jarda, Kuliposh, Koira, Sole and Tamra. Among
the seven ranges, Koira, Barsuan and Kuliposh come under the mining-impacted
areas. Koira and Barsuan ranges have unique bio-wealth [4].
Figure 1.
Diversity and population in quadrants taken in seven ranges of Bonai Forest Division, Odisha, India.
21
Indigenous Practices by Tribal Communities of Bonai Forest Division, Odisha, India: A Cause…
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1004022
3. Methodology
In the year 2020, only 291 fire points were found in the division, however in the
previous year (i.e., in 2019) 1965 fire points were detected, indicating the division’s
vulnerability to forest fire. Random quadrants of 20m × 20m from each range were
taken in fire burnt areas of 2021 and areas where fire had not happened for 3years
from 2019. This was done to explore the association between often occurring forest
fire and bio-wealth population. The opinion was taken after discussion with experts
in ResearchGate platform and mentioned in the Observations section. The interaction
was carried out with indigenous communities of study areas and their opinion on
forest fire and Rugda mushroom (Astraeus hygrometricus) collection was recorded and
presented in the section of case study [4]. The collected data were analyzed to show
that how forest fire is related to the lives of indigenous community of study areas.
4. Observations
The scientific analysis of the field data revealed that the number of tree species with
a minimum of 50cm gbh (girth at breast height) is higher in fire-burned areas in 2021,
but lower in places where there has been no fire in 3years. Authors observed that in fire
burnt areas, the growth of trees gained an advantage due to less ecological competition
[5, 6]. Alternatively, it could imply that controlled burns are required to counteract the
effects of uncontrolled fires and encourage long-term forest growth in regions where
herbs, shrubs and leaf litter have entirely dried. Shrub growth and plant population, as
well as the population of bird species and insects, are more noticeable in places where
there have been no fires for 3years. Details are listed in Table 1 and Figure 1.
On this important topic of forest fire, a conversation was held on the ResearchGate
(https://www.researchgate.net/) platform involving numerous researchers. The col-
lected opinions are mentioned here, which could throw light on forest fire.
“Changes induced by fire may include alterations to soil properties (N, C, organic
matter, pH, etc.), community shifts toward exotic and/or fire resistant and resilient
species, tree regeneration failure, and in the most extreme cases an indefinite shift
from forest cover to shrub or grassland. Certain forests are adapted to frequent fire,
those of the southwestern United States for example. Trees like ponderosa pine,
lodgepole pine, and western larch possess fire-adapted traits such as thick bark and
serotinous cones. Still, even for high fire frequency adapted forests a one-year fire
return interval over many years would be very stressful, unless the fire was very low
intensity. Yearly high intensity fires would likely favor understory species that rely on
fire to reproduce and preclude certain trees species. Such a fire regime might move an
ecosystem away from forest cover toward grassland” by Matthew Joseph Ruggirello,
National Scientific and Technical Research Council, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
“If forest fire occurs every year in a particular forest area the negative impacts which
can be observed are 1) degradation of the vegetation, 2) destruction of microflora and
microfauna, 3) loss of biodiversity, 4) loss of the land nutrients, 5) loss of cultivation
land, 6) reduction of the cereals production yields, or 7) (2) reduction of grass yields or
biomass” by Azizou EL-HADJ Issa, University of Abomey-Calavi, Cotonou, Benin.
“Surface fires burn only surface litter and duff. It removes low-growing underbrush,
cleans the forest floor of debris, opens it up to sunlight, and nourishes the soil.
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
22
Areas Tree Shrub Herb Faunal species
TTS Dominant tree NDT TSS Dominant shrub NDS THS Dominant herb NDH Av ian
species
Mammals Reptiles
FO 14 Shorea robusta 13 9Bauhinia vahlii 30 3Blumea fistulosa 5 6 1 2
FNO 17 Diospyros
malabarica
614 Celastrus paniculatus 5 4 Cheilanthes
tenuifolia
30 8 1 3
FO 13 Croton roxburghii 40 6Flemingia chappar 26 15 Desmodium
triflorum
50 4 1 1
FNO 15 Diospyros
malabarica
510 Helicteres isora 918 Canscora diffusa 14 6 1 2
FO 16 Shorea robusta 14 15 Flemingia strobilifera 4 8 Hemidesmus indicus 5 2 1 1
FNO 13 Shorea robusta 16 10 Millettia extensa 7 5 Hemidesmus indicus 17 7 1 4
FO 6Shorea robusta 18 2Millettia extensa 12 4Rungia pectinata 40 4 1 1
FNO 11 Shorea robusta 515 Pogostemon benghalensis 30 7Rungia pectinata 70 5 1 2
FO 6Shorea robusta 15 2Pogostemon benghalensis 22 7Hemigraphis
latebrosa
12 2 1 1
FNO 15 Shorea robusta 10 10 Clerodendrum
infortunatum
30 10 Oplismenus
burmannii
9 4 1 1
FO 11 Shorea robusta 21 6Cipadessa baccifera 513 Hemigraphis
latebrosa
11 2 1 1
FNO 9Shorea robusta 5 4 Pogostemon benghalensis 13 11 Justicia diffusa 19 4 1 1
FO 10 Shorea robusta 22 5Bauhinia vahlii 8 8 Canscora diffusa 6 3 1 1
FO, fire occurred; FNO, fire not occurred; TTS, total tree species; NDT, number of dominant trees; TSS, total shrub species; NDS, number of dominant shrubs; THS, total herb species; NDH,
number of dominant herbs.
Table 1.
The floral and faunal diversity of burnt (2021) and unburnt areas (In the last 3years) in 20×20m of Bonai Forest Division, Odisha, India.
23
Indigenous Practices by Tribal Communities of Bonai Forest Division, Odisha, India: A Cause…
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1004022
Reducing this competition for nutrients allows established trees to grow stronger and
healthier. It may clear the weaker trees and debris and may return health to the forest”
by J. C. Tarafdar, Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI), Jodhpur, India.
“Controlled fire is good for breaking dormancy seeds” by Abdul Nasser S Alborki,
University of Benghazi, Benghazi, Libya.
“It has positive effects on seed dormancy and understory competition, as well as
enhancing the forest ecosystem dynamics. However, a severe forest fire can negatively
affect the species diversity in the forest” by Elmugheira Mohammed, University of
Gezira, Wad Medani, Sudan.
“Forest fires in fire-intolerant ecosystems reduce biodiversity, although some species of
fauna and flora may benefit. Objective assessment of losses and benefits as a result of
fire is difficult to carry out and depends on the adopted criteria. In general, it should
be said that the losses outweigh the benefits, because fire (although being an integral
component of the environment) transforms it to a great extent when it appears in
the environment” by Jan Kaczmarowski, General Directorate of State Forests, Forest
Protection Department, Poland.
Controlled burns, according to the experts’ opinions and survey data, may be use-
ful in reducing the adverse impacts of other types of forest fires while simultaneously
fostering good tree development. Furthermore, the study’s findings recommend the
following approaches to lessen the impact of forest fire on species diversity in areas
where forest fire has occurred. (1) Prior to the fire season, controlled burning with
Fireline tracing may be done. (2) In high-risk locations, controlled burning of shrubs,
exotic shrubs and herbs may be used to minimize the severity of the fire. (3) It’s pos-
sible that regulated surface fire could aid in the germination of specific plants and the
maintenance of the diversity and population of floral and faunal wealth, including
insects. In this line, hence site-specific control burning may be used. (4) Controlled
burning could give good quality of leaves in sustained way for the utilization by the
indigenous communities without harming big areas of forest.
5. Forest fire and indigenous communities
Indigenous communities of study areas depend on Minor Forest Products (MFPs)
like, fruits, leaves, roots, barks, resin, firewood, etc. [7]. Indigenous communities set
fire to get good quality of leaves, more firewood and other MFPs. Therefore, in many
locations of study areas, they set the fire. Authors observed this practice and created
awareness programmes in different locations of study areas (present study).
6. Rugda mushroom: a food and tribal practices
During working on forest fire in study areas, authors noticed a relationship
among a tree, community and a mushroom known as Rugda (Astraeus hygrometricus).
Following the pre-monsoon, the communities set fires to obtain food and a means of
subsistence in the form of Rugda. Traditional methods for obtaining forest products
are primitive and dependent on local climate and topography. While the quantity of
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
24
forests and their products has decreased over time, the practices have not altered, and
they must be preserved to contribute to natural systems that are both sustainable and
balanced. Indigenous methods for forest sustainability are used by tribal communities
around the world. In India, certain communities in Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal,
Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh gather wild mushrooms to provide a year-round
source of income and a staple food during the rainy seasons ([8]; present study).
The local tribal communities benefit greatly from the reduction of food insecurity
and malnutrition because of the wild mushrooms. There are numerous reports that
are available on edible, non-edible and medicinal mushrooms from India and other
countries. In the Bonai Forest Division of Odisha, India, authors are studying commu-
nity conservation, indigenous traditional knowledge, forest fires and the relationship
among communities and forest wealth. During the field survey, the authors visited
tribal markets to gather knowledge on wild edible food plants and found a mushroom
locally known as Rugda that was being sold for between Rs. 400 and Rs. 2000 per kg
in local weekly markets of study areas. It was a surprising price in rural and tribal-
dominated areas and developed interest to know more about the mushroom in every
aspect. Rugda (Astraeus hygrometricus) belongs to the family Diplocystaceae. It is
commonly known as Hygroscopic earthstar, Barometer earthstar, False Earthstar and
locally known as Phutka, Boda, Potu and Sargi Boda. The young edible mushroom
looks like a puffball and on maturity, the outer layer opens in a star-like manner. It is
an ectomycorrhizal mushroom that is grown in association with specific tree species.
It used to have a cosmopolitan distribution, but it is now widespread in temperate
and tropical areas. It is a water-absorbing puff and is left open to maintain humidity.
Rays are cracked and irregular but the spore case is pale brown. The gleba is white
and turns brown to powder in mature form. This mushroom was first described by
Christiaan Hendrik Persoon in 1801 as Geastrum hygrometricus. In 1885, Andrew
P. Morgan proposed that differences in microscopic characteristics warranted the
creation of a new genus Astraeus distinct from Geastrum [9–13].
The literature review mentioned above significantly increased our interest in
learning more about mushrooms directly from residents. Thirty-five respondents who
were from the Munda, Kisan, Bhuian, Khadia, Gond and Oram groups participated
in the discussion on Rugda and recorded their opinions after a random questionnaire
survey was carried out. As per the gathered information, they wait for the monsoon
to collect the mushrooms, and following the first round of intense rain and lightning,
they go out into the jungle early in the morning to gather them (Figure 2B). It was
stated that they believe increased lighting will produce more Rugda. No scientific
validations are available for the above claims made by communities (present study).
They collect these mushrooms and sell in the local markets at an unbelievable rate
per kilogram (kg) (Figure 2c). They also consume them as a vegetable. It was noticed
that everyone wants to purchase them at any cost and locals believe that they are rich
with nutrients, having medicinal values. The taste of Rugda is very delicious and
authors also consumed it (Figure 2D; present study).
Authors are now faced with the challenge of how they would know where to obtain
the mushrooms in bulk. We conducted interviews with residents and field personnel
from the Forest Department to get the answer to this question once more, and the
results disappointed us. The villagers set the fires in the study areas from February to
May, which causes them to harvest a lot of Rugda easily (Figure 2A; present study)
just after the monsoon and provide them with a solid source of income because they
can sell it for a high price and use it as a vegetable too. It was noticed that tribal com-
munities also collect them and cook during the celebration of local festivals.
Indigenous Practices by Tribal Communities of Bonai Forest Division, Odisha, India: A Cause…
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1004022
Authors selected the 20 forest patches in three ranges of Bonai Forest Division (Sole,
Tamra and Jarda) where no forest fires occurred and the 20 patches where fires occurred
(Sole, Tamra, Jarda and Bonai ranges). A survey of these 40 forest patches revealed that
local populations were observed to be gathering Rugda mushrooms in the morning and
Figure 2.
Rugda mushroom; causes of forest fire and source of food and livelihood, (A) Rugda near sal tree in burnt areas.
(B) Local tribal women collecting them from burnt areas after monsoon. (C) Rugda is being sold in local weekly
markets. (D) Authors cooked and consumed it.
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
26
Author details
Sanath KumarN1,2, Susanta KumarBiswal2 and SanjeetKumar3*
1 Office of Divisional Forest Officer, Bonai Forest Division, Bonaigarh,Odisha, India
2 School of Applied Sciences, Centurion University of Technology and Management,
Odisha, India
3 Ambika Prasad Research Foundation, Odisha, India
*Address all correspondence to: sanjeet.biotech@gmail.com
during the day in 17 forest patches where forest fires had occurred. Some communities
traveled up to 60 kilometers to the sites were forest fire occurred previously, because
they were aware of fire occurrences in these sites. These observations clearly revealed
that locals set fire in moist and dry deciduous sal forest to get more quantity of Rugda.
7. Conclusion
The present study clearly shows that to mitigate the negative impacts of forest fire,
we need to carry out community work with indigenous people in any forested area where
forest fire is a big issue. The results of the present study also revealed that, due to the
reduced forest cover and density compared to earlier times, wild plants, shrubs, insects
and other animal species are now seriously at risk due to forest fires. Rugda thrives on
sal tree-associated phosphorus-rich soil, which makes it a contributing factor in forest
fires. The study also indicates that to achieve harmonic balance, it is urgently neces-
sary to enhance this mushroom’s cultural methods sustainably as well as value addition
with indigenous communities. It must be determined how to collect these mushrooms
scientifically without using fire or harming other flora and fauna. Numerous awareness
campaigns are required, and the community’s conservation and mitigation action plan
for forest fires must be launched with the help of the local communities.
Acknowledgements
Authors are thankful to the local communities, field staffs and members of the
Ambika Prasad Research Foundation. Authors are also thankful to the Bonai Forest
Division for providing facilities for the study.
© 2024 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of
the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0),
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original work is properly cited.
Indigenous Practices by Tribal Communities of Bonai Forest Division, Odisha, India: A Cause…
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1004022
27
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[11] Mallick SK, Maiti S, Bhutia SK,
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29
Chapter 3
Spirits and Spoils: Matter, Memory
and the Living Culture of Human
Remains in the Andes and the
Amazon
AdineGavazzi and AnnaSiri
Abstract
The precolonial societies of the Andes and the Amazon and their ancestral
memory among living cultures have always shown a central interest in the concept of
death, to which innumerable material and immaterial testimonies bear witness. Huge
necropolises, cemeteries inhabited by heirs, urban ceremonial centres, remains, and
booty constantly reused in altars testify to a daily and indestructible relationship with
all that dies. Underlying this pervasive, persistent, and millenary cult is the idea that
the dead do not leave the living but wait for them in another region of time, acces-
sible through the care of the loot, their memory, and collective ceremonies. From
the Paracas and Nasca tombs, which build an entire cosmovision around a burial, to
the demonstration of the earthly and spiritual power of the Moche rulers, to the Inca
mummies ritually led in procession according to the rules of the calendar, the signal
of eternal time constantly penetrates the diachrony of life, celebrating its flow that
oscillates between births and deaths. Periodic visits to cemeteries to eat and talk with
the dead, the recovery of skulls to recall ancestors in votive form, and the constant
symbolic recreation of the cosmos keep alive the memory of spirits eternally alive and
redeemed from their mortal spoils.
Keywords: human remains, living culture, tangible and intangible cultural heritage,
pre-Hispanic Andean and Amazonian societies, ancestral memory
1. Introduction
On 5 October 2015, a Go competition took place in London between the world
champion Fan Hui and AlfaGo, a computer programme developed by the company
Deep Mind. After five games in which the algorithm challenged its opponent several
There is a river whose waters give immortality; somewhere there must be another
river whose waters take it away.
Jorge Luis Borges
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
30
times, the machine won. For the first time, a programme that can learn and decide
for itself displaced the cognitive skills, intuition, and imagination of the best human
mind engaged in the same task. In less than 5 years, the applications of artificial
intelligence in the world of automation exploded. From orthopaedic prosthetics that
improve movement to algorithms that compose music, invest in the stock market,
control jet engines, or predict cancer diagnoses, every area of human activity has
been overtaken by the presence of a machine. Since 2017, companies offering digital
immortality have also entered the market in the form of applications that are able to
use a person’s data after their death and interact with other users forever. Humanity in
the new millennium seems destined to live with programmes such as Etern9, Lifenaut
or Eternime1 that challenge the definition of consciousness and erase the boundaries
of life [1]. Death has become a traffic accident in the globalised twenty first century,
which can be replaced by an eternal and immaterial algorithm. What drives the
Western civilisation to break all norms in order to achieve immortality? What are the
effects of abolishing time, diachrony and the idea of a border?
The emergence of a technosphere2 that permeates human action and planning in
the new millennium raises key questions about the value and meaning of death for
present and future Western society [2]. However much the living is able to interact
with algorithms that transcend the difference between biological and digital through
avatars indistinguishable from the original, one difference remains. A programme
that learns by itself and incorporates emotions and aspects that its biological original
ignores is not born and does not die. It learns and transforms but does not become
a venerable ancestor over time. The definition of a life process implies, by defini-
tion, its end. But the dead are essential to the Living. The immaterial spirits and the
material remains remind us that human time is this, that the living are also indebted
to them and that there is a responsibility to leave a message for those who come after.
Remembering the dead in matter or in mind gives meaning to the biological chain
in which the present is a microscopic link coming from the ancestors and heading
towards posterity. Through this radical memory, individuals look to their children and
grandchildren with the knowledge that their unique experience contributes to a more
significant phenomenon called life.
If humans began to interact as if the dead were alive, if they forgot their own end,
if they replaced it with an everlasting and perfect avatar, this sense of belonging to
an ongoing process would disappear. Evolution would come to an end and with it,
the space-time coordinates that form cosmologies and whole cultural systems. Today
more than ever, the identity of a people, like that of an individual, needs the memory
of death. Tangible and intangible cultural heritage, like its natural counterpart,
describes unique endemism whose diversity is essential for the recombination of
ideas, monuments, languages and cultures3. Eliminating this diversity endangers
evolutionary differentiation processes and, thus, any cultural continuity [3]. With
the disappearance of a language or a monument, ideas and testimonies of exceptional
value are lost and the components of the cultural fibre that keeps the fabric of life
going. Consequently, protecting the material and memory of human remains by
1 Savin-Baden and Burden [1] present the theme of digital immortality as part of an evolutionary process
of a self-referenced Anthropocene.
2 Zalasiewicz et al. [2] introduce the technosphere as a dimension that overlaps with the Biosphere and
Ethnosphere progression already defined by Davis (2004).
3 Moore et al. [3] demonstrate the link between biodiversity and cultural and linguistic endemisms.
31
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cultures from the past or the present takes on a significance that goes beyond the
individual cultural phenomenon and is intended to spread universal values.
2. Pre-Hispanic Andean and Amazonian death
In the cultural declension of the celebration of death, every human – and to some
extent animal4 – tradition delimits the space and event of death by signalling it in
a way that can be communicated to others [4]. Death is a memorable, celebrated,
and monumental event because it conveys an exemplary warning. In many cultures
of the past, this aspect is found in a visible way: from the funerary architecture of
Cheops to the Famedio of Milan’s Monumental Cemetery to the shrine of El Alamein,
the demarcation between the world of the living and that of the dead is clear and
sometimes grandiose. In the Andes and the Amazon world, this notion constructs
cultural landscapes of eternity from a shared vision and infinite local variations.
The theocratic Nasca capital of Cahuachi5 on the desert coast of southern Peru, for
example, stands on a 24km2 necropolis that evolved from an arc of progressive burials
thousands of years old [5]. The geological, historical and ethnic interpretation of
the transformation of the territory through what Mannoni would have called “global
archaeology”6 reveals the diverse and constant expression of a society that aimed to
maintain the public functions of sacred space, even to the point of constructing build-
ings that could only be inhabited by the deities and spirits of the dead [6].
The pre-Hispanic funerary cultural landscape, which houses the development
of such a system, shows a society defined by the preservation of its own ancestors,
which was maintained over time until the cemeteries of today. In Nasca and Paracas,
thought of the first century AD, death is a true cult elaborated through complex
burials layered around modified and mummified bodies. Especially on the coast and
agricultural plateaus, burial in the earth affirms a principle of silent germination that
takes place far from the light. The presence of miniaturised objects in graves, reminis-
cent of the seminal creatures of the Ucku Pacha – the Andean Inframundus – evokes
the idea of the seed from which new life will emerge. The heads, in particular, are
reused in votive form, symbolising the pars por toto7. They appear as offerings at the
base of buildings or as recurring emblems in iconography [7]. An entire cosmovision
developed around the care of mortal remains thus bridges the world of the living and
that of the ancestors. On the North Coast, in Moche societies in the first centuries of
the Christian era and in Lambayeque8 from the twelfth century onwards, ceremonial
centres interpret the presence of the eternal world in the diachronic world through
the expression of authority [9]. Sovereigns, rulers, and priests are given otherworldly
significance through pompous burials that reflect the strength of spiritual power over
political and social power. From Sipan to Chornancap to Túcume and Sican, each
4 In addition to primates, elephants bury deceased loved ones, owls and giraffes organise wakes, dolphins
codify mourning, and many others define funerary activities of various kinds. King [4].
5 Goldsmiths [5] analysed the Nasca archaeology of the Cahuachi carimony centre in a multidisciplinary way.
6 Mannoni [6] was the first to treat landscape and spatial planning phenomena from an archaeological
point of view, with an integrated approach that proves essential in American studies.
7 Drusini and Baraybar [7] introduce the notion of the votive head into the anthropológico físico register of
offerings.
8 Narvaez [8] reconstructed Lambayeque prehispanic iconographic narratives and was the first to demon-
strate the existence of cultural biocorridors between the coast and the Chachapoya world.
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
32
centre constructs its own mythic narrative that establishes the relationship with the
past and gives direction to the present. The symbols of government become those
of the ancestral world, and the territory is recognised and organised as a diachronic
projection of an eternal system.
The world of the Chachapoya in the Amazonian Andes of Kuelap and Abiseo9
takes up this idea and houses the dead in a funerary architecture that hovers in stacks
above the abyss and is always visible from the settlements of the living [10]. In this
way, a constant relationship is established between the diachronic and horizontal
life of the earth’s inhabitants and the vertical life of those observed from above. The
dead are not really dead. They have only temporarily migrated to another place,
leaving behind remains that serve to regulate life cycles and maintain social order. The
mummified remains of the Incas carried ritually in public processions throughout
the year mark a rhythm in the calendar. At the same time, their appearance illustrates
the lineage of the Panacas, the royal families that administered certain parts of the
territory10. The human remains, accompanied by a procession, recall the spirits that
animated them during their lifetime and that express an authoritative presence dur-
ing the ceremonies through the simulacra of their bodies [11]. To maintain a political
system, it does not matter whether the authority appears in the flesh or is periodically
animated by a mummy. It is the power of their narrative that generates meaning and
gives direction to the course of history. All social actors participate in the construction
of this collective imaginary that defines, around the ceremonial spaces of eternity, the
periodic incursions of the spirits into the world of the living.
3. The ancestral memory of living cultures
The periodic alternation between sacred and profane time, diachronic and perpetual
space and time of life and experience of eternity shapes the entire pre-Hispanic con-
ception of landscape and shapes much of the historical record and contemporary eth-
nography. Underlying this view, from the páramo to the cloud forest, from the lagoons
of the Alto Andes to the dry forests of the coast, is a two-dimensional, cyclical notion
of existence. The constant rebirth of the biotic network of geoclimatic cycles can be
observed in every ecosystem, as can the bistagional alternation of the neotropics.
This repetitive phenomenon, which links numerous megadiverse ecosystems, gives
rise to just as many cultural endemisms in which animism takes on cosmo-centric,
cyclical and reticulated aspects. In the absence of a single visible centre, the ecological
cyclicality between land, water and air systems is recognised and codified by myriad
traditions of living cultures. Life seems to oscillate constantly between a diachronic
and an eternal reality: between the course of rivers and the motionless mirrors of
lagoons, between the accelerating transformation of the forest and the motionless
presence of the mountain and between the continuous sighing of the ocean and the
fossil silence of the desert. In this eternal pendulum between irreversible biology and
static eternity, two thresholds define the transition between perceptions of the world:
birth and death. In order to exist, it is necessary to cross both and to create, through
symbols, forms and monuments, the space in which the ancestors dwell. According to
Muñoz [12] who defines the parameters of the ethnography of the dead, their spirits
9 Gavazzi and Narvaez explore the symbolic languages of the elaborate Chachapoya iconographic universe,
identifying links with Amazonian contemporary ethnography.
10 Amado [11] demonstrated the persistence of the Inca cultural universe in colonial times.
33
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are invoked through the remains that are regularly cared for, visited, displayed and
revered in every indigenous society past and present.
The material presence of the remains is an indispensable element of the intru-
sion of the sacred into everyday life. At some moments, the dead live, eat and dance
together with the living. In the village of Machu Picchu, for example, inundated
by a globalised tourist economy that causes environmental and cultural damage
from which it is difficult to protect heritage, the cemetery is one of the few joyful
environments. The families of the deceased organise regular visits to the grave, offer
the deceased’s favourite food and spend long lunches chatting, eating and restoring
affective relationships that are important for their personal stability. This phenom-
enon occurs in rural and mountainous areas as well as in cities. The mega-metropolis
of Lima is home to 11 million people, and in the southern area, corresponding to
the Lurin River valley and the great ceremonial centre of Pachacamac, there are the
Jardines de los recuerdos: vast expanses of tropical English meadows dotted with
small gravestones and gathering places. In northern Peru and in rural areas along the
coast, bones are constantly on the move: the looting of graves is common to reuse the
remains, relics and especially the skull on the altars of the master curanderos. From
Trujillo to Lambayeque to Piura, the use of skulls on an altar determines the appear-
ance of the spirit of an ancestor, just as a stone reminds us of the sacred mountain
from which it came or a ceramic of the temple it represents. Altars delineate the
chessboard of sacred space where invisible and dominant energies such as music
bend the human will, dispel a disease, resolve a trauma and accompany the living on
the path of healing. The collection of bones and skulls, as pars pro toto, is an eternal
Andean memory.
Narvaez Vargas, reconstructs the Lambayeque collective imagery and visual
mythography, identifying the pre-Hispanic origins of contemporary ethnography;
spirits heal because they do not get sick, and the deities are boneless [8]. The liquid
body of Kon, for example, flies across the landscape by sheer force of will. The
Pachacamac of Lima has neither skin nor bones. Humans communicate with them
through cartilage: with their ears and eyes, they receive messages, and with their nose
and mouth, they transmit them, as the huge repertoire of Andean expressions proves.
When they die, their bones emerge and bear witness to their human condition. The
spirit and the heart, on the other hand, migrate into the realm of the spirits. That is
why it is so important to preserve the bones. Their presence on contemporary altars,
such as Inca processions, re-establishes the contact that death has temporarily inter-
rupted but that a ceremonial context can restore.
Mortal remains are also reused to create sacred spaces and places of prayer. In
Chiclayo, the Casa de las Animas preserves the remains of a flooded cemetery. The
population goes there every day to light a candle, leave an offering or gather for prayer
at the beginning of the day.
The millenary persistence of this skull cult, of skulls and more generally of the
ceremonial use of bones, extends northward into the Piura area. Polia’s comparison
between the archaeological record of Ayapate and ethnographic memory shows how
the dead continue to exert influence through their material presence and as emissaries
of an invisible world [13]. The location of Chiclayo and Piura between the ocean and
the Amazon makes it possible to observe a pre-Hispanic heritage in motion between
ecosystems. This flow reveals a coexistence between the natural and supernatural
worlds that stretches from the coast to the Andes to the Amazon. Animals, products,
ideas and especially bones are constantly moving through the bio-corridors. Some
graves, for example, are emptied or enriched with remains from contexts far removed
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
34
in time and space. Bones from ancient necropolises migrate to cemeteries in other
regions and become ambassadors of interregional cults.
In Amazonia, where everything renews itself, the only permanent remains are
fossils. They were formed 20 million years ago when the eastern Andes dammed
Lake Pebas, and today they nourish the myths of those fossilised ancestral figures
that populate the cosmo-visions of the forest peoples. Like human bones, these lithic
remains of the Neotropics point the living to the need for regeneration and dialogue
with the omnipresent and omnipotent world of spirits. The biotic network in the
Eastern Andes is so abundant and persistent that it becomes necessary to forget one’s
dead in order to make room for the newborn. Among the Jivaro, for example, the dead
are actively forgotten by the living, who displace their name and history from indi-
vidual and collective memory. Thanks to this active displacement, a cyclical identity is
created that can be reborn with the same characteristics [14]. It is a daily and inde-
structible relationship that keeps the forces of the cosmos in balance. At the apex of
this unsurpassed megadiverse biotic network are the master plants that have planned
and directed the movement and distribution of food resources and the movement of
animals for millennia. The master plants are the first to promote a regenerative con-
cept of life, not only in their size but also in their influence on the cultural expressions
of the Amazonian ethnic groups. The millennia-old herbal medicine associated with
the ayahuasca mixture teaches first to die and then to be reborn [15, 16]. Aya - Huasca
means the vine of death in Quechua11.
The contemporary Andean cosmovision, heir to the Inca mummy cult, mallqui,
considers the deceased as a seed connected to the ancestors. The mallqui seed tree
feeds on the nutrients and underground water provided by the root system and is des-
tined to restore life through its fruits [17]. Transitioning between death and eternity
and sharing in the fertility of the cultivated fields involves a journey into the under-
world to reach the ancestral origin in a lagoon or mountain. Following Huarochiri12
tradition and contemporary records [18], the spirit moves to familiar places for 5 days
and is veiled by relatives [19], then embarks on a journey to the underworld to return
to the origin of life. The Awajun, for example, surround the ground around the body
with ashes to ensure that the spirit does not leave the body during this time and leave
visible footprints.
In the water cycle, the river of life originates in the lagoons of the highlands and
flows down to the sea, the mother lagoon, where it dissolves and dies. The sea water
[20, 21], attracted by the constellation of the Lama, passes through the celestial river
Mayu, the galaxy, and flows back to the lagoons in the form of rain13. The journey
through the life of the river and the eternity of the sky is similar. However, the char-
acters are different depending on the quality of life, social status and the work done
in life. Once we reach the underworld, the line between human and animal spirits
blurs. As Millones14 points out, animals also play a central role in the underworld
[22]. The ancestral guide of the deceased is the swift and powerful hummingbird
that accompanies them on their journey through a lime and reversible universe.
11 Narby’s best known work (1995), [16] was the first to seek out those bicognitive processes between
science and indigenous knowledge capable of transforming the globalised cultural horizon.
12 According to Avila [18] 5days is the usual period for appearing, dying or manifesting through natural
macro-events: Arriaga records the activity of 5days to veil the deaths.
13 The Andean water cycle is the basis of the celebration of rebirth [20].
14 Millones [22] defined the most extensive ethnographic record of funerary cults in northern Peru,
comparing it to Mesoamerican traditions.
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While on the coast and in the Andes, the dead are escorted by animals; in the
Amazon, they become so directly. The body of a Shuar, for example, is transformed
into parts: The lungs become butterflies, the shadow a deer, the heart a bird and the
liver an owl [17, 23].
The idea of dismemberment, prevalent in Sechinese, Nazca and Moche iconogra-
phy and recounted in ancestral transformation myths, reveals a deep respect for the
rules of nourishment and regeneration that imply the sacrifice of the dying. Only by
overcoming the limits of bodily integrity and accepting its dissolution is it possible to
cross the threshold of death to enter another landscape.
4. Conclusions
When one dies, is it forever? Perhaps not. According to the Huarochirí myths,
it is only a temporary state: those who are petrified return to life after serving their
sentence, and those who are killed are reborn multiplied by the number of pieces they
were cut into. Spirits also return to life. For some, death, which did not exist in the past,
was invented to right the wrongs of living communities. For all, however, it is a thresh-
old that demarcates the space of a perpetual and indestructible relationship with that
which is reborn. Perhaps the expression “forever” only points to the perpetual cycle of
regeneration of living forms maintained by that pervasive, persistent, and millennial
cult that sets the boundaries of life. The dead do not abandon the living: they wait for
them in another region of time, which they reach through the care of remains, memory
and collective ceremonies. The world of the Andes and the Amazon nurtures a continu-
ous symbolic recreation of the cosmos, inhabited by spirits eternally redeemed from
their mortal remains. The signal of this eternal time penetrates the diachrony of life,
celebrating its pendular motion that oscillates between births and deaths.
In this hybrid and multiform system, humans possess only the bones that the gods
lack. The heads are seeds that are reborn as plants and microcosms in the symbolic
vision of the ascending return to the mountain of the ancestors. When offered on an
altar or at a sacrifice, the hydrogeological system is reactivated, and the cosmic order
is restored.
To be human is to have bones. Body parts are transformed into animals, and their
identity is reborn. Perhaps they are not fully alive either, because in life they deal with
spirits and in death they always return to earth. Crossing the diachrony of profane
space and the eternity of sacred space, the characters form a hybrid and living theatre
where one dies and is fearlessly reborn again and again. This experience is had every
day, in the eternal cycle of day, awakening and sleep. In the dream, the soul detaches
from the body, as in death, and is free to cross the earthly entrance to the underworld
to navigate the subterranean rivers that mirror the heavenly ones.
When we wake up in the twenty first century in such a different cultural universe,
the advance of knowledge and the ancient warning of Tertullian take on a whole
new meaning. Antonaros points to the point of no return for a desperate humanity
adrift on a vast platform left to its own devices. One has to look over one’s shoulder,
to one’s ancestors, and remember that dying is what makes one human. Respice post
te. Hominem te esse memento15. The teaching of the Amazonian Andean spirits and
remains lies in the dynamic balance between the course of human life and that of
15 Tertullian (in Stampini, 1898) and Antonaros (1997) bring the human consciousness of the twenty first
century closer to a liminal condition that technológic utopias continue to ignore.
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
36
sidereal eternity. It is useless and arrogant to think of a transcendence. It is even less
intelligent to project a digital immortality that is incapable of dying.
The ancestral relationship between the eternal spirits and the mortal remains is
the vector of a relationship that not only enables the living to relate to the departed
but also makes the forms of eternity visible and repeatable. Here immortality is
reversible. It is not a digital abstraction of an artificial arrow of time but a visible
phenomenon that can be measured by all in the cycles of nature. The cosmic vibra-
tion reflected in the water cycle passes through reality in various states and returns
as part of a diverse and coherent system. The ritual of ascending to the temple or
sacred mountain opens the gateway to death and eternity; in turn, the descent of
water reveals the gateway to birth and the return to life through fertility. So too, the
journey of water in the celestial river of the Milky Way becomes rain in the lagoons.
One-half of the journey on earth makes living beings mortal. The other half, through
the celestial river, makes them immortal. Even though finding and climbing this river
requires major cognitive transformations, this path is alive and active in the sacred
landscapes of the Andes and the Amazon. Indeed, there is a river whose waters confer
immortality, and in the not-too-distant future, in some region, there will be another
river whose waters take that immortality away.
Further references
In addition to works noted in this chapter, the following scientific papers may be
of interest.
Arriaga Fray PJ. Extirpación de la idolatría del Perú, Biblioteca de autores espa-
ñoles. Madrid. 1968.
Antonaros A. The Platform, Jaca Book, Milan. 1997.
Ávila, F de. Dioses y hombres de Huarochirí, narración quechua recogida por
Francisco de Ávila [¿1598?], Edited by Luis Millones, introduction by José María
Arguedas, Fondo Editorial de la Universidad Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, Lima. 2007.
Carmichael P. Nasca mortuary customs: death and ancient society on the south
coast of Peru [PhD diss.], Departments of Archaelogy, University of Calgary. 1988.
Davis W. The Ethnosphere and the Academy, atti Interinstitutional Consortium
for Indigenous Knowledge, College of Education at Penn State. 2004.
Drusini A, Orefici G. Nasca, Hypotheses and evidences of its cultural develop-
ment, Brescia CISRAP. 2003.
Eliade M. Treatise on the History of Religions, Turin Bollati Boringhieri. 1976.
Gavazzi A. Rinascere nel canto. Origine dell’umanitá nel mondo andino amaz-
zonico” in Silvano Petrosino (edtor). Il Dramma dell’inizio. Origine dell’uomo nelle
religioni, Collana Archivio Julien Ries per l’Antropologia Simbolica, Jaca Book, Milan.
2017: pp. 143–157.
Gavazzi A. La voce del Tempo. Vento spiriti e nelle tradizioni musiche andine e
amazzoniche. In: Silvano Petrosino (editor) Il vento, Lo Spirito Il Fantasma, Archivio
Julien Ries, Jaca Book, Milano. 2012. pp. 77–89.
Gavazzi A. Microcosmos- Visión andina de los espacios prehispánicos, Apus
Graph Editions, Lima. 2012.
Gavazzi A. Ande Precolombiane. Forme e storia degli spazi sacri, Jaca Book,
Milano. 2010.
Gavazzi A. Verso l’altro – Le montagne sacre andine” in Julien Ries (editor) Le
montagne Sacre, Jaca Book, Milano. 2010. pp. 221–239.
Spirits and Spoils: Matter, Memory and the Living Culture of Human Remains in the Andes...
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1002733
37
Author details
AdineGavazzi* and AnnaSiri*
UNESCO Chair in Anthropology of Health – Biosphere and Healing Systems,
University of Genova, Italy
*Address all correspondence to: adinegavazzi@hushmail.com and anna.siri@unige.it
Proulx D. Head hunting and ritual use of trophy heads in the Nasca culture. In:
Nasca c. de J. Rickenbach, Museum Rietberg Zürich. 1999.
Stampini E. Alcune osservazioni sui carmi trionfali romani. Prolusione letta il 15
dicembre 1897. Rivista di filologia e di istruzione classica. 1898: 26(2).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
© 2023 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of
the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0),
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original work is properly cited.
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
38
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41
Chapter 4
Traditional Leadership, Indigenous
Knowledge, and Local Governance:
Implications for Good Governance
and Sustainable Development
Agenda
Olawale R.Olaopa and SaheedOgundare
Abstract
The traditional leadership institution had far-reaching and overall commitment
toprotect the local people within and outside their jurisdiction. It controls the
allocation of community land held in their custody and trust; preserves law and
order; collects taxes; provides social services; promotes education; adjudicates and
makes pronouncement on conflicts through utilization of native intelligence defined
by local/indigenous knowledge (IK). This guarantees effective local administration
and control are facilitated by faithful adherence to the dictates of traditions, socio-
cultural values, and norms entrenched in traditional institutions. Unfortunately,
these traditional institution and leadership were neglected by colonialism. This
chapter, using qualitative historical data and thematic analysis coupled with twin
theories of dependency and cultural revivalism, tries to explore, and determine
whether the institution of traditional leadership has any relevance in the modern
governmental system and sustainable development in Africa. It found and concluded
that fundamental to good governance and sustainable development agenda is the
acknowledgement of the traditional institution, IK, and leadership as the custodian
of society’s values and norms, the neglect of which good governance and sustainable
development will be a dream. The work is significant in its contribution to research
ontraditional leadership, IK, and their impacts on development.
Keywords: Africa, traditional leadership, indigenous knowledge, governance,
sustainable development
1. Introduction
For centuries before the advent of colonial rule, governance in different parts of
Africa was synonymous with traditional institutions and their rulers. Local admin-
istration generally centred on the traditional rulers who were considered as the
guardians and symbols of cultural values and religious practices, enforcing laws and
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
42
adjudication of conflicts, with a few exceptions as in the case of the Tonga in Zambia,
the Masai in Kenya and the Igbos in Eastern Nigeria [1, 2]. The traditional leader-
ship institution had far-reaching and overall commitment to protect the local people
within and outside their jurisdiction, control over the allocation of community land
held in their custody and trust; preserve of law and order; collect taxes, provide, and
administer social services; promote education; adjudicate and make pronouncement
on conflicts. Recently, they have been significant in the provision of public goods, as
facilitator of economic development, elections, and conflict management and resolu-
tion [3–7]. Their strength in providing these functions lies in their age-long existence
and untenured position, their number and the increase population rate of rural
inhabitants who are strategically the target of any development and good democratic
governance agenda. All these are facilitated especially by their knowledge and strict
adherence to the dictates of traditions, socio-cultural values and norms entrenched
in traditional institutions. These defined values and norms, have in fact absolutely
remained a fundamental quality of all societies in Africa. They are not only seeing
as powerful traditional tools for survival, but they also form the bases of human and
society’s continued existence in terms of effective and good governance. To be spe-
cific, in pre-colonial Africa, these norms and values, even though unwritten, formed
and dictates the bases and directions which African traditional rulers undertake
governance, exercised power and authority or influence over their jurisdiction and
subjects. However, these governance institutions and structures crucial to good gover-
nance [8] were distorted during colonial era which brought a new role and changing
status of traditional rulers and the institution in governance process [9]. Specifically,
the imposed new governance arrangement by the European coloniser over the exist-
ing traditional independent authority offered the colonialist the opportunity to easily
manipulate, exploit and control African territories. It also made the African cultural
values inferior while traditional leaders were reduced to mere adviser in the colonial
governmental arrangements [10, 11]. Even, at independence, traditional leaders’
roles are less considered in the modern governmental systems as roles are shared and
implemented among the political office holders. This then raises some pertinent ques-
tions: What are the main features of indigenous traditional administrative systems
in Africa; has the system and institution of traditional leadership have any relevance
in the governance process in terms of the provision of public goods and services (law
and order/administration of justice; management of common pool resources e.g.
public land, forest etc.; infrastructure provision and maintenance); what strategies
are being employed to facilitate and ensure effective and good governance at the
local level, to what extent has African government utilised indigenous leadership and
knowledge to promote the democratic interests of rural communities and what are the
impediments to successful integration of this institution and knowledge into modern
governmental systems for good governance and sustainable development agenda.
Using qualitative historical data and thematic analysis, this paper tries to provide
answers to these questions by examining the general role of traditional leadership and
institution in the pre and postcolonial epochs with a view to determining the extent
to which the postcolonial states in Africa has deviated from this system. It will further
allow us the opportunity to explain the currently experienced loss of direction in
governance which is the bane of poor governance in Africa as reflected in the vari-
ous prevalent and persistent political, religious, ethnic, and civil conflicts and warp
development at the local and national levels in the continent.
The above is not to suggest that there has not been attempt at highlight-
ing the vigorous contributions of traditional institutions and leadership on
43
Traditional Leadership, Indigenous Knowledge, and Local Governance: Implications for Good…
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1003144
development [12–14], public goods [15, 16], and political violence [17, 18] in Africa.
Notwithstanding, the lack of sufficient research on traditional institutions’, indig-
enous knowledge (IK) and good governance and sustainable development is worri-
some. This chapter is presented to fill this gap, among others, in literature.
2. Theoretical framework
This paper adopts qualitative review of literature on twin theories of the depen-
dency and cultural revivalism in its explanation of how the traditional leadership,
traditional institutions and their IK were disparaged, relegated, and manipulated in
a way that African resources were incapacitated from continuously performing their
usual traditional responsibilities of providing good governance for which they were
renowned before colonialism. The dependency theory posits that Africa’s socio-
economic and political backwardness and indeed the failure of various governance
institutions including the traditional institutions have their roots in the forceful inte-
gration and incorporation of the continent into the outside edge (periphery) of global
capitalist system. The arrangement which only allocated a second fiddle role to the
continent in the international capital market. Andrew Gunder Frank, Frank Fanon,
Walter Rodney, among other leading proponents are of the opinion that the reason for
state failure in Africa is explainable within the context of the activities and motives
of the bourgeoisie as depicted in the principles of colonial interventionism and their
interest in empire-building. The works of classical Marxist theory, dependency
theory can be traced to the works of Lenin and Luxemburg, and which was later
developed by American and African scholars like Gunder Frank, Samir Amin, Franz
Fanon, and Walter Rodney among others [19]. Specifically, as argued by [20], what is
being referred to currently as the state of underdevelopment with respect to African
countries can only be described within the structure and agenda of the impacts of the
interrelationship between production relations and capital formation processes in the
supposed developed economies.
On cultural revivalism, the theory ascribes a very significant and powerful influ-
ential role to African traditions and cultural heritage. As posited by Gyekye, the main
way to successfully deal with contemporary African problems is through renaissance of
African indigenous traditions hitherto disparaged and neglected by colonialism [21].
3. Perpetuation of dependency in Africa through foreign ideas
With respect to the traditional rulers, institution, and IK, the colonialists’ occu-
pation in Africa introduces the indirect rule, Christianity, and new commerce. The
implementation of all these under African traditional rulers with the appointment of
puppets to replace them significantly reduced the traditional powers and influence
of African rulers and led to the emergence of serious opposition and development of
antagonism to the colonisation of Africa. This activity led to the abolition of Atlantic
slave trade. The reason for this African traditional rulers’ opposition was spurred
by the feelings that Europeans commercial activities is taking toll on their domains
without due respect for African traditions, religions, customs, and culture and for
them as the custodians of these values. This is so in that the newly introduced colo-
nial religion disparaged and condemned African religions as inferior, evil, archaic,
and outmoded. Traditional rulers and leaders who fought against the European
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
44
domination and control in Africa were overpowered, dethroned, and extradited
to give way to the Europeans control and domination of African commerce. These
included Caliph Attahiru I of Sokoto Caliphate, Kosoko of Lagos, Jaja of Opobo and
Nana Olomo of Itsekiri in the oil Rivers as well as Satiru Revolt by Satirawa in 1906 in
Sokoto Sultanate in Nigeria. Others across Africa include Samory Touré of Mandinka
Empire, Menelik II, emperor of Ethiopia, Zulu Chief Bambatha of South Africa, In
East Africa there was the Maji Maji revolt in Tanganyika by Kinjigitile Ngwale, Priest
John Chilembwe of Nyasaland, now Malawi, Abd al-Qadir in Algeria, and the Shona
and Ndebele rebellions in Rhodesia, among others. Even after independence, the
traditional authorities were incorporated into the newly created local and district
government structures except for few countries like post-independence Namibia
and Zimbabwe where traditional authorities were formally excluded from local and
district government structures [22]. These authorities were not recognised as part
of the formal governmental structures, even though they were retained after inde-
pendence [23, 24]. All these have serious disastrous impact on the development and
contributions of traditional institutions, culture, religions, and indigenous resources
to governance in Africa.
4. Traditional leadership, indigenous knowledge, and local governance in
Africa
In Africa, the formal structures of government have been seen to perform below
the expectation of its citizens and as such have become a clog in the wheel of good
governance. The import of this claim can be found in the declining quality and quan-
tity of the services provided by these institutions. This unsatisfactory performance
has led to the sourcing of another institutional structures for providing essential ser-
vices to the citizens. These alternatives are found within the purview of private provi-
sion or community-based provision usually facilitated by the traditional structures.
The efficacy of traditional leaders, institutions, and IK to ensure good governance
and guarantee sustainable development has, according to public administration schol-
ars, inspired renewed interest in this area [20, 25–34]. Besides, these institutions have
proven to be irrepressible, well institutionalised, and very reliable to the extent that
African people are so confident in their capacities to improve their wellbeing through
effective provision of required goods and services. These include security, health ser-
vices, infrastructure - roads, bridges, schools, post offices, administration of justice,
mechanisms for conflict resolution, common-pool resources management and credit
provision among others than any other institutions or structures [22, 35–37]. The
ability of these institutions to do this is facilitated and made possible through some
certain unwritten laws (traditions, cultural values, etc) which have their foundations
in the IK of the society passed on through stories, myths and legend, folklore, rituals,
or songs from generation to generation and which formed the significant part of the
general social structure which in turn bring up order, development, peace and stabil-
ity in these local areas.
In the area of indigenous administration and governance, the traditional pre-
colonial African societies across the continent consist of well institutionalised and
recognised indigenous administrative and political systems. Examples of these, even
though with variations in their features, include the old Ashanti empire and Ewe
speaking people in ancient Ghana, the ancient Dahomey empire, the metropolitan
and provincial Ashanti empire and the Hausa/Fulani emirate, Igbo society and Yoruba
45
Traditional Leadership, Indigenous Knowledge, and Local Governance: Implications for Good…
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1003144
kingdom in Nigeria. In Nigeria for instance, in the Hausa-Fulani emirate, the admin-
istration of law and justice for peaceful settlement of dispute were based on religious
teaching of Islam. The Chief Judge was the Khadi or Chief Alkali, appeal to Alikali’s
judgement goes to the Khadi as the final court. Peace is maintained by the Madawaki
who acted as the commander-in-chief of the calvary (force or arm). Among the
Yorubas of the same country, although the Alaafin was very powerful regarding
the judicial power, he cannot be despotic and autocratic as there are institutions, the
ogboni and the Oyo Mesis that provide control and check on his powers. There exists
the age-grades and vigilante groups’ which assist the local police force and involve
in peacekeeping and prevention of crime or punish criminals to guarantee effective
security in the community [38]. While the Igbo political system had no formal courts
for the administration of justice, the Council of elders and the village assembly took
part in the administration of justice. Oracle and earth goddess including Igwekala of
Umunoha, the Amadioha of Ozuzu, the Agbala of Awka are institutions that are also
made use of in the administration of justice for peace and security. Offences such as
murder, incest, deliberate destruction of farm crops and the assault of elders were
regarded as offences against these gods, Ala in particular [39, 40]. Other deities and
goddess that could be likened with these among the Yorubas includes Ogun (god of
iron), Sango (god of thunder), Osun (water goddess), Obatala and Ifa. Whoever
acted against the laws and orders of the communities and lied must not swear by
them otherwise serious calamity will befall such person [39, 40]. The reverence to
these deities in the pre-colonial system and as local standard for oath taking has also
assisted in ensuring transparency and accountability in governance [38, 41].
In Cameroon for example, conflict between and among persons in the villages
is being resolved at the community level [42]. At this level, although leaders are
concerned with personal development, the issue of governance and other projects
directed at solving society’s challenges are more paramount in their minds [43]. As
stressed by [42], in some situations, religious laws are highly respected and consid-
ered sacred, an order of the gods in which the elders and priests are the custodian.
Social formations and indigenous structures in Central Africa, like in West African
societies, are characterised by communitarian, operated and governed on the basis
of kinship relationship [44] and reverence to various deities, which fundamentally
prevent the type of scandal that often results in excommunication and/or abandon-
ment of family members to their individual destinies as witnessed during colonialism
[45, 46]. These pre-colonial societies relied on these institutions/deities for effective
administration and governance of their localities.
In the area of infrastructure—roads, bridges, schools, post offices, common-pool
of resources management and credit provision among others, there are village/local-
based associations, family welfare or age-grade societies formed with significant
contributions to rural development in Africa [47, 48]. In Nigeria for instance, most of
them, because of the high spirit of communalism and loyalty, embark on various rural
development projects like the construction of roads, boreholes, maternity clinics,
health centres, Churches, mosques, schools, Post Offices, markets, cultural and recre-
ation centres. In some areas, for rural economic advancement, they organise them-
selves to cooperative societies where financial resources are pooled together for local
trade and commerce. This is often called ‘ajo’ or ‘eesu’ among the Yoruba traditional
societies. One question that may be posed here is that: how embezzlement or default-
ers can be prevented. The use of IK in oath taking (‘imule’) assist in the prevention of
fraud and whoever go against the agreement will incur the wrath of whatever deities
that was used in taking the oath.
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
46
Related to the above is the issue of corruption prevention. Not oblivious of the
existing controversies on the prevalence of corruption in precolonial Africa vis-à-vis
the Afrocentric view and that of decolonisation school of thought, this paper sub-
scribes to Afrocentric school that pre-colonial African leaders were responsible and
responsive to their subjects and avoided corruption as much as possible [49]. This is
so in that their behaviour is guided by their traditional beliefs, culture, and customs.
Moreover, upon assumption of office, they swear to oath of allegiance to their ances-
tors and the belief is that any departure from this and the moral and ethical standards
of the society will invite the anger of the ancestors and community gods. This, couple
with the communal spirit and love that guided their operation, therefore insulate
them from being corrupt.
One of the major age-long African socio-cultural heritage is traditional medicine.
Africans and their traditional leaders have been practising and utilising this traditional
approach to health [50]. They have equally passed it among generation to solve their
health and medical challenges before the advent of conventional or orthodox medicine.
This is despite the wrong impression and conception about them. To be specific, the
practitioners of traditional and indigenous medicine rely majorly on medicinal plants
and herbs for the preparation of healing substances. There is no doubt the fact that
present health care systems in Africa is expensive and put African people in serious
predicament [51]. The option for African government is either to continue providing
a type of health care which cannot be accessed by all in need or reconsider and offer
more all-inclusive types of medical care and delivery systems. In this circumstance,
given the fact that traditional medicine has been clearly understood and play signifi-
cant role in African society, its propensities are being investigated and validated and as
well supported by the World Health Organisation to complement modern medicine, its
practices should be promoted. The promotion and development of African traditional
medicine can both foster dignity and self-confidence in communities through self-
reliance, while considerably reducing the continent’s drug costs and expenses. It serves
as an important focus for international technical cooperation and offers the potential
for major breakthroughs in therapeutics and health care delivery. Efforts in modern
governance should be taken to keep the practice of traditional medicine alive in Africa.
Regarding the way by which conflict and misunderstandings are being handled
and resolved, traditional leaders employ native intelligence and IK to manage and
put finality to the resolution of a conflict. In every society in the precolonial Africa,
the utmost concern of the community is to ensure an enduring peaceful relationship
within and between societies. The philosophy of this worldview is encapsulated in the
phrase, kanye ndu bowi, among the Buem-Kator people of the Volta Region of Ghana
which translates literally to mean the “ingredients of social harmony” [52]. Among
the Yorubas in Nigeria it is referred to as ‘aabo ara eni ni aabo ilu’ meaning ‘an indi-
vidual’s security amount to the aggregate security of the whole society’. These provide
ethical and genuine foundation for every means of communal regulations and is put
into use through the levying of essential penalty. This could be psyching rewards
received by the people for conformity to the accepted mode of behaviour or the feel-
ings of ethical uneasiness and embarrassment experienced by defaulters [53].
Other traditional and IK techniques and methods employed for conflict settle-
ment/adjudication for peaceful co-existence and harmonious relationships [41], by
the traditional rulers in the precolonial African societies is reconciliation. This is often
used to amicably settle dispute between and among parties, communities, organisa-
tions etc. as in the case of boundary delineation exercises, which is usually accom-
panied by elaborate ceremonies among the Yorubas of Nigeria have a smack of true
47
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reconciliation [54, 55]. This method was also employed by the traditional societies of
Pedi, Pondo, Tshwana etc. in South Africa [55–58].
Final settlement of conflict in Africa is often effectively concluded with oath
taking, and at times go with ceremonies intended to celebrate the successful comple-
tion of the peace process [40, 59]. In some African societies, the mediator use either
indigenous kolanut (cola acuminata) or palmwine, eats or drinks a part thereof where-
upon each disputant repeats the act and any refusal to drink therefrom is a registration
of disapproval and non-acceptance of the reconciliation [59, 60]. This was witnessed
in the event of the settlement of Aguleri-Umuleri-Umuoba Annam war in the Eastern
part of Nigeria. Other objects used for oath taking in Africa include the iron object
(sacred to the god of iron, apasa (weaving instrument) and iru (chiefly sceptre), royal
shrine or religious sanctuaries [41]. The wrath of the gods is invoked for drawing facts
of the dispute and gods such as Sango (god of Thunder), Yemoja (goddess of river) and
Ayelala (guardian of social morality) are used to ascertain the veracity of the story told
by disputants as in the Yoruba ethnic group in Nigeria [61, 62].
In the management of natural disaster in Africa, there are well-preserved tradi-
tional IKS in various local communities. This knowledge has been used to observer
and forecast weather and climate using acceptable traditional signs disaster preven-
tion and management at the local level. This knowledge has been proven to be useful
and effective in predicting occurrence of floods in Swaziland [53, 63]. It has also been
seen to be efficacious among the native societies of the Central African region and
Northwestern Cameroon [42]. These predictions enhanced by IK, as argued by [38],
as simple and cheap compared to modern technologies, have never disappointed the
indigenous people. All these mechanisms and strategies are employed by traditional
leaders, institutions, and the indigenous societies to ensure effective and good local
governance, promote the democratic interests of rural communities and sustainable
development at the local level.
Even though modern governance institutions built on some of the existing preco-
lonial structures, the involvement of traditional leaders and the utilisation of (their)
IK for ensuring dedication, loyalty and sincerity is totally neglected under the guise
of modern religion and civilisation. This is because the colonial interests portray
African locals as barbarians without history and regard their indigenous institutions
as conservative and archaic [64]. Thus, instead of allocating functional roles and
responsibilities to the traditional leaders who have the mastery of administration
of their localities, they are given only ceremonial role to perform. This has a lot of
implications for democratic governance, its processes, and challenges regarding
improvement in the quality of life of the rural poor.
5. Traditional leadership, traditional institutions, and IK: implications for
good governance and sustainable African development
To effectively bring into limelight the implications and the propensity of tradi-
tional leadership, traditional institutions and IK for good governance and sustainable
African development, this paper takes side with the cultural revivalism school of
thought settlement. As argued, postcolonial African and its people should imple-
ment a more critical transformative freedom agenda capable of completely liberat-
ing Africans and that anything short of this in any guise is nothing but continued
European cultural domination [65]. Hence, honest, and sincere development that is
viable and sustainable in Africa is that which is rooted in African cultural norms. This
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
48
viewpoint of the paper is without prejudice to the critics of the cultural revival school
that the only way out of African continent’s development quagmire is to totally move
away from its past to address the critical challenges effectively and urgently according
to the exigencies of the present [66].
Consequently, African governments are yet to utilise indigenous leadership and
knowledge to promote the democratic interests of rural communities. This can be
deciphered from the modern time administration and governance’s lack of focus on
citizens’ welfare while leaders have also become very powerful, despotic, irresponsive,
and irresponsible in the allocation of society’s socio-economic and political benefits.
One of the most important strengths of indigenous institutions is their general
acceptability by all community members and modern government machineries.
Others include orderly succession to office in line with customs and traditions.
Also, the stable nature of the institutions over time compared to instability that
characterises modern/state institutions, and effective checks and balances which
largely prevent traditional rulers from being tyrannical or dictatorial. This ensures
and guarantee effective system with low governance cost because of the method of
oath taken on assumption of office that prevents waste. Rather than taking oath in
the African manner, modern political office holders/leaders prefer the use of Bible
and Quran which is alien to African faiths and beliefs. This gives them opportunity
to perpetrate corrupt practices with impunity as it is witnessed and pronounced in
Africa. The political leaders’ preference for western religion stem from Africans say-
ings particularly among the Yoruba culture in Nigeria that ‘Mo nbo wa Olorun kii ya
ni Ogun odun’ (meaning that it is indeterminable when God will come to give judge).
It takes time to expose you by God compare with African gods if you committed an
offence. With this belief by those at the helms of affair, the legislature, executive
and the judiciary therefore put-up lackadaisical attitude towards the performance of
their duties, responsibilities, and people’s welfare. Thus, lack of reverence to African
gods and deities in the modern-day government as standard for oath taking has been
responsible for poor transparency and accountability in governance as well as the
provision of infrastructure and basic amenities in the continent. Of import is that
indigenous leaders and institutions provide not only resources in terms of cash for
development purposes, but it also makes available ideas, initiatives, and influence in
support of local level development.
In peacekeeping and maintenance, prevention of crime, total neglect of the role of
traditional leaders and traditions have been responsible for the increasing rate of crime
and criminality in Africa. For example, it is a taboo to kill a duck among the Yorubas of
Southwestern part of Nigeria. Even if this is done by mistake, the killer must put a coin
on the duck’s mouth. The belief is to instil fear on the killer not to kill a living thing.
Someone with this experience will never dare to kill a fellow human being. Thus, if
this had been properly imbibed, the recent spate of killings under whatever reason
would not have been happening in the continent. Not only this, the rate at which the
life of the members of armed forces are being lost during crises and peace keeping
operations in the continent would have been reduced if some of the signs and symbols
used for various predictions in the traditional societies have been considered.
It will be interesting to also note that most of the recurring conflicts in the conti-
nent would have been permanently resolved if the traditional leaders and institutions
were allowed to use their native intelligence and informal conflict resolution mecha-
nisms. The modern adjudication process allows for a victor and a vanquish, a situation
that promotes enmity because ‘a kii ti ile ejo de, kia tun se ore’ (one does not become
friend after a court litigation) [67]. All these are attestation to the significance and
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utility of indigenous African traditional institutions to solving societal challenges
posed by modern-day representative government and governance process. In other
words, it shows African traditional institutions and knowledge constitute a vital
resource to democratic governance, citizens welfare and sustainable development
agenda and transformation.
Consequently, the question that now arises are: in what way can the norms and
values entrenched in traditional institutions be integrated with the modern system
of governance; what are the impediments? and how can these be surmounted for
harmonious utilisation to ensure good governance and sustainable development
agenda in Africa.
Opportunities exist for improving, adopting, and adapting the hitherto neglected
traditions. For instance, the aspect of traditional values and norms which emphasise
good governance can be revived, harnessed, and promoted by the political elites
who are increasingly being appointed into the modern governmental system through
award of honorary chieftaincy titles.
Traditional leadership, indigenous institutions and knowledge also offer prospects
for building a better system by adapting among others indigenous efforts at decen-
tralisation as found in the various African societies, federal arrangements, and other
arrangements that allow and facilitate harmonious relationship among people of dif-
ferent parts. That is, to live together in a community by creating or integrating urban
and rural resources and elements for constituting or reforming formal institutions for
local level development [35].
Oath taking as one of the norms and values entrenched in traditional institutions
can be adopted and integrated with the modern system of governance to promote
transparency and accountability in governance. This should be implemented in
African ways as there is nobody in Africa, even with the prevalence of orthodox reli-
gion, without his or her roots in one of the African traditional religions. If governance
is about serving people, any refusal to swear to an oath in African way therefore is a
pointer or an indication of intention to rule against the wishes of the people.
All these are benefits or value-addition that the reconciliation will make to modern
system of government in the search for good governance and sustainable development
in Africa. As noted by [68], society is best managed and significant number of efforts
and resources can best expended when policy and its processes are within the context
of societal history and culture. To build and or strengthen African states therefore
requires sincere recognition of its traditional rulers, its institutions and IK as well as
adapting to changing realities in the modern-day democratic government and gover-
nance in all ramifications.
The above notwithstanding, process of integrating traditional rulers, its institu-
tions and IK is not without its challenges. For instance, the nature of ascendancy and
ascription to indigenous political leadership, institution, and offices, in some com-
munities, are restrictive and this limits leadership innovation and ideas. The tendency
is also to concentrate power in a few hands. This type of leadership is not completely
open in that the political foundation is entrenched in spirituality, divinity, customs,
and tradition, which often time involves high level of secrecy that is incompatible
with the ethics of modern government. In addition, the temporary approaches to
development projects implementation at the local level is suggestive of the indigenous
institutions’ weak financial/capital base, lack effective managerial skills, and deficient
entrepreneurial qualities.
On conflict resolution and administration of justice, the lack of separation of
powers in some of the traditional societies can give room for hasty and undemocratic
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
50
sanctions with little or no room for review of cases and appeals. The nature of African
traditional societies, indigenous institutions and leadership give room to exclusion
of women who forms majority of the population from policy and decision-making in
some communities.
Other impediments and threats to indigenous leadership and institutions has to do
with challenge from state-based institutions, challenges posed by youths, literate and
westernised elites especially in societies that cannot easily detach from its socio-cul-
tural and traditional values; as well as challenges from modernization and monetiza-
tion which are destroying spirit of communalism by encouraging individualism [35].
Regarding IK, although the existing intellectual property laws and legislations
in some African countries, South Africa for instance, does not completely safeguard
IK systems [69, 70]. This, in many situations opens the IK to misappropriation,
exploited without due recognition and acknowledgement of the guardian of this
knowledge. This notwithstanding, intensive efforts on behalf of many developing
and less developed countries comprising African countries and Indigenous peoples
and communities all over the world have shown the significance of IK as key to their
participation in the knowledge economy [71]. Specifically, many African countries
have made the crucial effort to formulate their own precise legislation, referred to as
the sui generis legislation [72]. In South Africa for example, the Intellectual Property
Laws Amendment Act of 2013 extend protection to traditional knowledge referred
to as IK. Also, in government gazette, 19 August 2019, in Act No. 6 of 2019 provided
for the protection, promotion, development and management of IK through the
establishment and functions of the National Indigenous Knowledge Systems Office,
among other provisions. In Botswana, Part XII of its industrial property Act provides
for Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) to traditional communities and practitioners.
In Zimbabwe, even though the burden of legally protecting traditional knowledge
lies with the state, the country’s constitution of 2013 provides for the preservation of
traditional knowledge [73].
Thus, in greater dimension, African countries have continued to be proactive
in their thinking and actions regarding the symmetry between IK and sustainable
development. This is evident through the various international and intercontinental
efforts directed to champion the fortification and preservation of IK in serious global
instruments over the past years [71]. Some of these legal acts or instruments include
the Rio 1992 set of international instruments, especially the Convention on Biological
Diversity (CBD) (5 June 1992) 1760 UNTS 69 (entered into force 22 December 1993)
and the ensuing protocols, the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for
Food and Agriculture (3 November 2001) 2400 UNTS 303 (entered into force 29
June 2004), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (4–14
June 1992) 1771 UNTS 107 (entered into force on 21 March 1994) and the United
Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples [74], among other important
international human rights treaties and declarations. Other locations include numer-
ous thematic programmes of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)
through its Intergovernmental Committee (IGC) and the WIPO Development Agenda
[75]. There are other groups of legal materials and noteworthy policy instruments of
continental coverage and those that have regional significance across trade, socio-
economic, cultural, environmental, and developmental cooperation in relation to IK.
These instruments include the Constitutive Act of the African Union; the African
Economic Community (AEC); the statutes of the Pan-African Intellectual Property
Organisation (PAIPO), the African Regional Intellectual Property Organisation
(ARIPO) and the Organisation Africaine de la Propriété Intellectuelle (OAPI);
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the Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA);
the Charter for African Cultural Renaissance; the Revised African Convention on
Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources; the African Model Legislation for
the Protection of the Rights of Local Communities, Farmers and Breeders, and for
the Regulation of Access to Biological Resources; the New Partnership for Africa’s
Development (NEPAD); the African Union Framework Document on Agenda 2063;
Africa’s Science and Technology Consolidated Plan of Action (CPA); and the Science,
Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA). Also included are the instru-
ments establishing three (out of eight) representative African Regional Economic
Commissions (RECs)—the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the
Economic Community of Western African States (ECOWAS) and the East African
Community (EAC)—and the Swakopmund Protocol on the Protection of Traditional
Knowledge and Expressions of Folklore [70, 76].
6. Conclusion
The relevance and significance role of traditional institutions to the transforma-
tion of African economies and governance systems cannot be overemphasised.
Traditional rulers are the closest to the people, and the custodians of the tradition
of the people. Traditional institutions and knowledge constitute crucial resources
that have the potentials and opportunity to promote grassroots governance and to
facilitate access of rural communities to public services. The goal of transformation is
to achieve a speedy increase in social wealth and its driving force is economic develop-
ment. Traditional rulers in Africa are in a privileged and vantage position to accelerate
the achievement of this goal, and as such should not be abandoned. Political and eco-
nomic development would be better attained when rooted in widely shared institu-
tions and cultural values which traditional authorities represent and any system that
downplayed this in governance process does so at its own peril. The neglect of unique
cultural norms and values embedded in traditional institutions and knowledge in
the modern-day African democracy has been the bane of poor governance and warp
development at the local level. What then remains is to properly integrate the institu-
tion into the continent’s contemporary local government system for good governance.
7. Setting agenda for good governance and sustainable development in
Africa: policy recommendations
As can be deduced from the preceding sections, the development of African
continent remains retarded and unremarkable compared to its potentials because
of colonialism. However, given the continent’s significant potentials driven by the
people’s strength and endurance, what then requires is for Africa to pursue its own
socio-political and economic development agenda using its endowments rather than
borrowed approach [77]. Setting agenda in this regard, effective leadership demon-
strated by traditional leadership appears as the foundation for crossing this hurdle. It
is the leadership that derives its power, legitimacy, influence, and authority from the
traditions of a particular people. Such leadership entails transparency, accountability,
and a profound commitment to community’s traditions, religion, culture, and values
for the people’s well-being. The absence of such leadership acts as an impediment
to closing the gap between underdevelopment and sustainable development and
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
52
obstacle to good governance. In this context, the incorporation of indigenous leader-
ship approach appears as a developmental alternative. In African societies, some
culture exists with deep leadership ideas embedded in peaceful co-existence, com-
munalism, and sustainable development. Motivation from these indigenous models,
which have survived over-time, gives fresh strength and enthusiasm into develop-
ment engagements.
Indigenous leadership regularly involves community consent and agreement,
advancing the elders’ responsibilities, local intelligence, and knowledge, as well as
collective or joint decision making. The philosophies of Ubuntu and Ujamaa adopted
in many African countries for instance, are concepts that emphasise partnership,
collaboration, compassion, communalism, shared support, social justice and equal-
ity through community, mutual respect, and brotherhood. This concerted approach
echoes with the necessity for joint effort in bridging the gap between underde-
velopment and sustainable development and obstacle to good governance. Thus,
indigenous leadership models stress complete reasoning, connecting wide range
and multivarious factors, reflecting the details of Africa’s development challenges
[78]. In this sense, indigenous leadership approach can be utilised to fill the vacuum
created in Africa’s development transformation agenda. This is against the backdrop
of the fact that creative and futuristic leaders who embrace and infuse indigenous
values can exploit shared understanding and transform it into substantial concrete
improvement.
Examples abound around Africa where traditional leadership and its accompa-
nying integration of IK has been utilised for solving their challenges. The Gracia
system in Rwanda for example has assisted in facilitating settlement process after
the outbreak of genocide war. The system is a traditional form of community justice
which helped to use community involvement, recovery, restoration, and responsibil-
ity to foster unity and recovery [78]. Also in Botswana, the concept of ‘Kgotla’ which
highlights negotiation or discussion, compromise, and involvement, is in line with
the latest values of good governance. It is traditional community approach to joint
decision making involving gathering of people. Among the Igbo people of Eastern
Nigeria, there is a ‘Council of Elders’. It consists of highly revered people who plays
a very significant role in decision making and in the settlement of conflicts among
disputants using native intellect. This is with a view to ensuring and promoting peace
and cooperation for harmonious community relations.
It should be stated that leadership is not restricted or limited to individuals only,
institutions. It concerns both governmental and non-governmental who have critical
responsibility to discharge. By entrenching openness, responsibility, and involve-
ment, they jointly facilitate transformation and close the gap between knowledge and
practice. Nonetheless, leadership responsibilities exceed individual and institutional
frontiers, it is a joint effort. It involves government officials, community leaders,
entrepreneurs, educators, among others, each with a vital role to play. Leadership
therefore requires acknowledging that development demands joint effort and coop-
eration, where all stakeholders participate to physically contribute their quota. To
facilitate this process of indigenous leadership approach, there is need for profound
acknowledgement of the local perspective, traditions, culture, and values. In this
respect, solutions can be made and provided to reflect community’s needs by identi-
fying the details of challenges within the context of IK. However, this is not without
its problems. For example, to surmount the problem created by organisation challenge
involves inclusive approach. This entails partnership between traditional leadership
structures and modern governance systems. In this context, the focus must be on
53
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fair distribution of resources, resolving historical discrepancies and guaranteeing
that development is enjoyed by all and sundry. When this is upheld and advanced,
the continent will be able to take advantage of the combined strengths of different
stakeholders for enhanced growth and sustainable development.
To this end, a constitutional reform which will bring an end to the legacy of colo-
nial rule with respect to the power of traditional rulers is required in Africa. This will
assist in bringing about the institution and all that it entails their lost glory, dignity,
respect and prestige from their subjects and societies. The significant importance of
the traditional leadership is attested to by the way former military dictators and suc-
cessive politicians have relied on and used them as tools to mobilise peoples support
for their programmes and electioneering campaigns in most African countries.
Creating an unambiguous constitutional role for traditional rulers with transpar-
ent mechanisms for appointment, promotion, discipline, and dismissal of traditional
rulers for violating constitutional provisions regarding the institution will reduce
unnecessary politicking and political interference and improve the institution’s
performance.
In addition to this, the constitution should mandate all tiers of governments to
involve traditional rulers more in local government affairs while their welfare should
be considered and be accommodated in the appropriate government’s financial plans.
This will go a long way to encourage the institution for better performance and insu-
late it from dabbling into partisan politics and as well preserve and protect its dignity
and integrity.
No doubt, indigenous Peoples have struggle for the recognition of their identities,
traditions, culture and their right to traditional lands, domains, and natural resources
for years, nonetheless records have shown that their rights have always been dese-
crated. As one of the most deprived and susceptible groups of people in the world, the
global community now realises that, given their crucial role in the preservation and
transmission of IK, special actions are needed to safeguard their rights and preserve
their unique cultures and way of life [79, 80]. This is attested to by their various
struggle in the international scene. Despite all these little has been achieved regarding
their acknowledgement and acceptance. Given this background and their essential
role in the local community as custodians of natural and indigenous resources, and
guardians of the lands and areas and collective rights of indigenous peoples globally,
much is needed in term of awareness creation through local, national, and interna-
tional seminars and conferences to further discuss the prospects of IK and the need
to preserve them for sustainable development. This can be facilitated through effec-
tive collaborations and partnerships with all stakeholders. When this is effectively
implemented, it will stabilise them in their conservation role. In the Democratic
Republic of Congo, for example, the Bambuti-Babuluko community is at the forefront
of the struggle to protect residual zones of primary tropical forest. In Iran provides
a good example outside Africa where the semi-nomadic Chahdegal Balouch manage
580,000ha of fragile scrubland and desert just as Nemonte Nenquimo, leader of
Ecuador’s indigenous Waorani people, has over many years protect the Amazon Forest
from being depleted by miners, loggers, and oil companies [80].
The role of Non-Government Organisation is in the process of acknowledging the
efficacy and prospects of IK for sustainable development significant. Their col-
laboration with the indigenous people and other stakeholders will facilitate effective
dissemination of required information to appropriate institutions and organisa-
tions. They can partner with the government in policy formulation with respect to
indigenous people and knowledge. This was witnessed in in Indonesia and Peru,
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
54
Author details
Olawale R.Olaopa1* and SaheedOgundare2
1 Department of Economics, College of Business Administration, Imam
Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, KingdomofSaudiArabia
2 Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Political Science, Obafemi Awolowo
University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria
*Address all correspondence to: orolaopa@iau.edu.sa
where governments and non-profit organisations are collaborating to design suitable
forestry policies that give credence and recognition to the land, resource rights, and
opinions of indigenous peoples. It also gives communities with land tenure prefer-
ences and offers farmers, fishers, and forest-dwellers education in skills and methods
to address climate change and forest management [80]. Besides, Non-Government
Organisation can work with indigenous people to improve their economic wellbeing.
This can be achieved by assisting them to locate new markets for their local products
and to expand their source of income to create flexibility and strength for enhance
traditional way of life. One important factor in strengthening indigenous peoples is
land tenure. Non-Government Organisation are in the best position to fight for this.
This can be achieved through securing of Certificates of Customary Land Ownership
and its accompanying land tenure system in collaboration with international organ-
isations and development partners.
© 2023 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of
the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0),
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original work is properly cited.
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1003144
55
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61
Chapter 5
Living the Heritage through
Indigenous Music Competitions
Ntshengedzeni EvansNetshivhambe
Abstract
This research investigates the problem that lies in the perception of cultural
dance music performance as a practice confined to homelands, resulting in discon-
nect for individuals in urban spaces, distancing them from their traditional cultures
and practices. To address this issue, it is essential to recognize that traditional music
should integrate into city life. While competitions are one approach, it is not the
sole solution. Government initiatives should be developed to actively promote and
encourage cultural dance performances in urban spaces, fostering a sense of cultural
identity and unity among city dwellers. Two case studies show a form of resilience
between the competitions that are held by the department of basic education in
South African and the collaborative approach by three different cultures (Venda,
Pedi and Tsonga) in the Northern part of South Africa called Limpopo province that
uses cultural performances to reimagine urban spaces that are accommodative of
indigenous performances. These two initiatives challenge the controversial policies
of separate development that were put in place by the apartheid regime to divide
South African black people by culture. The performances bring all black people
together where they were expected to live as separate ethnic groups.
Keywords: indigenous music, cultural dance performance, music competitions,
social inclusion, urban inclusivity, unifying force
1. Introduction
This chapter delves into an exploration of the rich and diverse cultural tapestry
of South Africa, with a particular focus on two case studies, one is the vibrant per-
formance traditions found within the Limpopo province found in the northern parts
of South Africa and the other is the schools’ indigenous music competitions run by
the Department of Basic education. It seeks to shed light on an intriguing phenom-
enon: the limited presence and influence of cultural expressions typically associated
with rural settings in the bustling urban landscapes. In essence, urban areas tend to
mirror an urbanized way of life, often detached from the time-honored practices of
indigenous communities. Consequently, urban spaces often do not provide a welcom-
ing stage for indigenous musical performances, especially those that involve mass
participation. Indigenous music performance competitions serve as a platform for
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
62
culture and heritage to flourish in urban spaces. However, when culture and heritage
are utilized in competitive contexts among diverse cultural identities solely for their
survival, they risk losing their intrinsic cultural significance. The pursuit of victory at
any cost in cultural performance competitions often shifts the focus away from pre-
serving cultural essence, instead setting a precedent that one culture can be superior
to another. These competitions may maintain fairness when conducted within the
same cultural heritage group, but this equity diminishes when extended to various
cultural heritage groups.
In response to this cultural disparity, a remarkable collaborative effort has
emerged within the northern part of South African called the Limpopo province,
uniting three distinct ethnic groups: the Venda, Pedi, and Tsonga [1]. They have taken
it upon themselves to harness the power of cultural performances as a means to envi-
sion urban spaces that embrace and incorporate indigenous practices. This transfor-
mative endeavor not only serves to revive these cultural traditions but also acts as a
catalyst for unity among the three ethnic groups, bridging the deep divides imposed
by the apartheid regime’s policies of separate development [2]. The northern area of
the South African country is the only province that has three official distinct ethnic
groups that live together [2]. The apartheid regime employed culture, heritage, and
language as tools to segregate individuals based on their ethnic identities, a strategy
commonly known as “divide and conquer” [3, 4]. However, in contrast, these same
three ethnic groups are now harnessing the power of culture and music performances
to foster unity among themselves.
Central to this initiative is the ingenious repackaging of culture as a valuable com-
modity. By doing so, this movement invites urban dwellers to join in the celebration
of their traditional heritage, fostering a sense of pride and connection to their roots.
In essence, it is a bold step toward creating inclusive urban environments that honor
and preserve the essence of South Africa’s indigenous cultures in realization of the
so-called ‘rainbow nation’.
This study is rooted in extensive research, encompassing interviews, performance
analyses, scrutiny of radio coverage recordings, archival materials, and a compre-
hensive review of existing literature. Over the years, the author has dedicated a
substantial amount of time to actively engage with and observe various indigenous
performances, with specific focus on two cases that happen on an annual bases of
cultural dance competitions. Notably, the analysis encompasses the performances
of diverse groups participating in the Radzambo Cultural Foundation’s traditional
dance competition and the South African Schools Eisteddfod Choral Competitions
(SASCE).
The Radzambo Cultural Foundation’s competition holds particular significance
in this study. It stands as a testament to the enduring commitment to cultural diver-
sity and unification through traditional performances within the underdeveloped
urban landscape of the northern Limpopo region in South Africa. This competition,
spanning more than three decades, has served as a vital platform for advocating
cultural preservation and fostering unity through traditional expressions. The choral
eisteddfod competitions organized by the Department of Basic Education for schools
are renowned nationwide in South Africa [5, 6]. Numerous schools enthusiastically
compete in a knockout format, with the final champions eventually uniting all the
winning schools to determine the ultimate winner. Within their choral competitions,
there exists a category known as “folklore music,” which is the main focus of this
article. In this category, schools showcase cultural performances, complete with their
traditional regalia.
63
Living the Heritage through Indigenous Music Competitions
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1003226
The investigation into these two types of indigenous music performances and
the meticulous analysis of the music therein have proven to be invaluable resources
for this study. In regards to this first-hand engagement, the author has delved into
existing literature, focusing on indigenous music performances and exploring the
intricate relationship between music and urban live. Moreover, the author’s personal
involvement as a former leader of an indigenous music performance group, actively
participating in various university competitions during undergraduate years, has
imbued this study with a deep-seated appreciation for the profound importance of
researching cultural dance performance competitions as a potent means of heritage
preservation [7]. Through this study, a conclusion is drawn that embarking on a jour-
ney to illuminate the multifaceted connections between indigenous performances,
urban spaces, academia and the preservation of cultural heritage could be beneficial
in people’s lives particularly in the area of curriculum development in South Africa.
2. The importance of indigenousness and indigenous art in urban settings
The inadequate integration of indigenous music and performances, rooted in rural
traditions, into the urban fabric of cities across the global South where forced migra-
tion is prevalent, can be attributed to a multifaceted issue. It encompasses not only the
scarcity of indigenous performances within these urban settings but also the urban
planning processes themselves. These processes often prioritize the creation of spaces
and venues that primarily cater to “culturally hegemonic” expressions, accessible
mainly to the affluent, while inadvertently side-lining the rich tapestry of rural-indig-
enous art. This inherent mismatch not only impedes the progress and development of
cities in the global South but also adversely impacts the quality of life for their most
disadvantaged residents. It results in a missed opportunity to harness the cultural
wealth of these regions and incorporate it into the urban landscape, which could
contribute to a more vibrant and inclusive cultural scene. Moreover, it obstructs these
cities from constructing new local and national identities that authentically represent
the diverse social realities and cultural heritage of global South countries.
In essence, the failure to integrate indigenous performances into the urban milieu
not only perpetuates socio-economic disparities but also stifles the creative and
cultural potential that could enhance the vitality and identity of these rapidly evolv-
ing urban centres in the global South. As Molho etal. [8] stipulate that.
This widespread diffusion of global urban cultural policy models has left its mark on
cities throughout the world. Although they generally espouse progressive values, they
often drive forward the marketization and the commodification of local culture and
lead to increased exclusion of already marginalized communities ([8], p. 116).
Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and the aftermath of World War II,
the issue of excessive rural-to-urban migration has become a pervasive challenge in
many developing nations [9–11], (Zabivora 2004, Yaohui 1999). This phenomenon
can be largely attributed to historical factors such as colonization and the deliberate
geographic segregation that characterized many communities and Africa being one
of the affected continents regarding the imbalances within developing countries.
These communities were often fragmented into small, isolated villages, set amidst
expansive rural landscapes, and often distanced from the emerging, less prevalent
urban centres. Consequently, African communities faced a pivotal choice: remain in
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
64
these underdeveloped rural villages or venture into the slowly emerging urban ter-
ritories. Persistent inequalities, racial disparities, and the dynamics of urban politics
consistently hinder the achievement of social cohesion within city spaces. These
factors tend to create divisions between the privileged and the disadvantaged, leading
to the isolation of economically disadvantaged individuals from their more affluent
counterparts [12].
Wolch etal. [13] introduce the term “environmental injustice” to shed light on
how the allocation of urban space often exhibits racial and socio-economic biases,
driven by factors such as affordability, race, culture, and income. These determinants,
in turn, are frequently influenced by underlying demographic patterns [14]. In the
realm of urban geography, this inequality manifests itself glaringly: those residing in
suburban areas enjoy access to a plethora of amenities, including green spaces, parks,
and venues for social interaction, all of which significantly contribute to their overall
well-being. In stark contrast, individuals with fewer financial resources find them-
selves confined to often unhealthy and substandard living conditions [15].
The reality for many of these migrant individuals who arrive in urban centres is one
of cramped living spaces, inadequate housing, and residence in townships or informal
settlements constructed from natural materials. This precarious housing situation
leaves them vulnerable to the dangers of fires and flooding. It is among these marginal-
ized urban populations that a profound longing for their cultural music performances
becomes palpable [16]. This desire becomes particularly pronounced when individuals
struggle to secure employment, prompting them to turn to music and shebeens as
sources of comfort and stress relief, often finding solace through dance and communal
music gatherings [17]. The consequences of eradicating or limiting these cultural prac-
tices extend far beyond the realm of music and dance. They have a ripple effect on wider
socio-economic conditions, as individuals who are unable to find solace in their cultural
traditions may turn to vices as a substitute for escapism. This shift can exacerbate social
and economic challenges, ultimately contributing to a cycle of hardship and limited
opportunities for those who yearn to preserve their cultural heritage in urban settings.
3. Indigenousness in the city as part of a holistic modeling of urban
wellness
Despite the well-documented therapeutic benefits of indigenous performances,
these invaluable cultural expressions remain a scarce commodity within urban spaces.
Morales-Hernández, Urrego-Mendoza Consuelo [18] compellingly argue that the role
of music in nurturing well-being goes beyond its therapeutic aspects and extends
to various social functions integral to the human experience [19–21]. Music serves
as a means of esthetic enjoyment, entertainment, communication, symbolic repre-
sentation, physical response, and reinforcement, all within the context of societal
norms, social institutions, and religious rites ([22], p. 463). Tweed and Sutherland
[22] emphasize the significance of cultural heritage in enhancing societal and com-
munity well-being, underscoring the importance of including indigenous music
heritage in the holistic well-being of individuals. Indigenous music performances have
the remarkable ability to forge a profound connection with individuals who, while
growing up, may have been separated from their cultural musical heritage due to the
necessity of migrating to urban areas in pursuit of employment opportunities. When
these melodies resonate within the cityscape, they evoke memories of home and serve
as a means to rekindle and affirm a sense of social identity among the listeners [17].
65
Living the Heritage through Indigenous Music Competitions
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1003226
The quality of life in urban settings is intricately linked to a multitude of attributes
that collectively contribute to overall human wellness [22, 23]. Recognizing the
importance of these “nebulous” disciplines is crucial for those that are responsible
for urban planning, particularly in the provision of socially enacted activities that
contribute to the comprehensive health of individuals [24]. Too often, the well-being
of urban dwellers is seen through the lens of the affluent and privileged, with theaters
and auditoriums catering to their musical preferences, such as orchestral and popular
music which are afforded affluent venues and spaces to flourish and to keep the
people entertained. However, a conspicuous absence exists when it comes to venues
for indigenous cultural music performances. Coplan says most people who come from
indigenous rural homelands often go to places such as ‘taverns’, shebeens1 to find
comfort about their lives in the cities. He says that
The word ‘shebeen’ itself seems also to have originated in Cape Town in the early
twentieth century among immigrant Irish members of the city’s police force. These
constables named the illegal black drinking houses shebeens ([17], p. 113).
If we truly consider the well-being of all citizens as a pivotal indicator of well-
planned cities, then indigenous music must be integrated into the comprehensive
framework of urban wellness. Many impoverished black individuals find solace
and therapeutic release in the urban centres they inhabit through indigenous music
performances. This form of artistic expression is notably more accessible to a
broader demographic when compared to other highly commercialized and exclusive
performance genres, making it a source of solace and enjoyment for the majority.
Indigenous music has the unique capacity to cater to both lower- and higher-class
individuals within the urban milieu. Those with limited financial means can find
healing and social well-being through cultural dance performances, thereby reinforc-
ing their sense of cultural belonging and identity in the diverse cultural melting pot
of the urban environment. This is particularly significant for the urban poor, who
often constitute the majority of the urban population. The term “therapeutic indige-
nous music,” as elucidated by Aluede etal. [25], encompasses musical expressions that
captivate listeners with resonant echoes of their cultural heritage. It encompasses an
extensive repository of musical traditions, instruments, dance forms, and language,
interwoven with indigenous beliefs and the surrounding traditional environment.
([25], p. 2). People residing in urban settings frequently turn to the music of their
upbringing as a means of reconnecting with their cultural identity and enhancing
their sense of belonging, leading to increased happiness and well-being. Ensuring
their access to live indigenous performances within the urban context strengthens
the bridge between rural and urban cultures, fostering greater national cohesion.
Embracing one’s culture within multi socio-cultural spaces boosts one’s self-esteem
and confidence while restoring dignity and identity particularly for those that have
suffered a cultural marginalization [26].
Residing in urban areas introduces a set of health challenges, as the urban lifestyle
often discourages physical activity like walking long distances and accessing organic
food. Furthermore, the concrete jungles of cities offer limited opportunities to bask
in the natural greenery that the natural world provides. Urban living tends to foster
a culture of convenience, leading city dwellers toward processed foods due to time
1 Shebeen is a team that is used in South Africa which refers to a beer drinking shop in township (See
Coplan[17]).
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
66
constraints that limit their ability to prepare wholesome meals. As daily life becomes
increasingly hectic, living conditions may deteriorate, leaving many urban residents
with little time or energy to prioritize their well-being [25–28].
This shift toward unhealthy dietary habits has indirect repercussions on indig-
enous performance practices within urban spaces. Such performances demand
substantial energy and typically span extended periods. The urban lifestyle’s impact
on physical health can translate into reduced energy levels, making it challenging for
individuals to engage in vibrant and sustained cultural expressions. These seemingly
small acts of cultural activism, such as participating in indigenous music perfor-
mances, conversing in one’s native language, or donning traditional attire, represent
tangible commitments to preserving and celebrating cultural heritage and can
contribute to a happy and healthy lifestyle [29].
Urban areas are often designed with a cultural hegemony in mind, especially in
spaces housing government institutions and major economic centres. As a result,
indigenous performances are relegated to the margins, finding refuge in the most
informal of community spaces, such as bars and streets, where they serve as a form of
entertainment and sometimes even a modest alternative to begging [30]. This stark
contrast between the dominance of mainstream culture and the relegation of indig-
enous expressions underscores the need for a more inclusive and holistic approach to
urban planning that values and integrates diverse cultural practices.
Indigenous music performances frequently unfold without due compensation, in
stark contrast to other music genres that demand payment for entry into urban venues
[31]. This discrepancy becomes even more glaring when we consider music venues
with established reputations, such as legitimate clubs, concert halls, and esteemed
cultural institutions like theaters and opera houses. These spaces inherently imply
that the music presented is a product of intellectual property, warranting compensa-
tion. Indigenous performances should unquestionably receive the same respect and
financial recognition, as this recognition can pave the way for sustainability, motivat-
ing musicians to continue preserving these rich musical traditions.
One of the key challenges is the inadequacy of existing urban venues for accom-
modating indigenous performances. These traditional expressions often involve
mass participation in cultural dances and rituals, necessitating larger spaces. Urban
planning should aim to design venues that embrace inclusivity, fostering a culture
of communal performances in urban areas. While most indigenous performances in
and around cities currently take place in townships and are organized by civil orga-
nizations like the Radzambo Cultural Foundation, these efforts often rely on school
premises or stadiums due to their open and expansive nature.
In urban settings, where diverse populations coexist, issues of identity, language,
and cultural compromise can lead to discomfort and tensions. Dominant cultures
tend to exert their influence on cultural performances and language propagation in
urban environments, impacting the representation of indigenous performances [32].
The prioritization of dominant cultures in urban spaces can overshadow the value
of indigenous expressions in connecting people and preserving cultural heritage.
Morales-Hernández and Urrego-Mendoza [18] stipulate that urban spaces must be
accommodative of all who live in it because ‘it also fulfils other social functions such
as aesthetic enjoyment, entertainment, communication, symbolic representation,
physical response and reinforcement, in accordance with norms, social institutions
and religious rites’ ([18], p. 463).
One of the most formidable challenges facing indigenous music performance, as
noted by Harrison [33], is the specter of climate change or global warming. This issue
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looms large because the survival of indigenous musicians relies heavily on the use of
natural materials for crafting their instruments and performance attire [14]. The use
of these natural materials is not merely a practical necessity but is deeply embedded in
the core identity of their performances and cultural attire. The musicians’ connection
to the natural world through these materials is profound, and any disruption in the
availability of these resources poses a significant threat to their artistry.
Harrison [33] aptly points out that the concept of “sustainability in the arts” may
seem somewhat misplaced, as what is sustainable in the arts often pertains to intan-
gible aspects of heritage. Unlike agriculture, where quantifiable proof of sustain-
ability can be provided, defining sustainability in the arts, particularly in the context
of endangered indigenous music practices, is more complex. The sustainability of
urban spaces, on the other hand, hinges on their adaptability to change (Arhen, 2013).
While Tweed and Sutherland [22] argue that urban sustainability planning frequently
focuses on technical issues such as energy reduction and environmental pollution,
Grant [34] emphasizes the need for a comprehensive review of the sustainability of
the arts, especially endangered indigenous music practices.
This review should engage various stakeholders to create opportunities for indig-
enous performances to establish a defined presence in urban spaces. Such exposure
can connect these performers with new networks and relationships, opening doors to
fresh opportunities for them to continue pursuing their passion and preserving their
cultural heritage in an ever-evolving urban landscape.
While in many ways heterogenous in experiences and cultural features, indigenous
peoples share: a self-identification as indigenous, a continuation of historical pre-
colonial or pre-settler societies, strong links to territories and natural resources, a
distinctness of social, economic or political systems as well as language, culture and
beliefs, a non-dominant position in broader society, and a resolve to sustain their
ancestral environments and social systems ([33], p. 28).
The prevailing perspective on indigenous music often tends to be closely inter-
twined with culturally oriented practices, typically associated with individuals
residing in rural communities. This perception holds true across various cultures,
where such individuals are often deemed indigenous or aboriginal due to their deeply
rooted connection with nature [35]. Their way of life, situated in spaces devoid of
structured urban designs, regulated road grids, electrified houses, or comprehensive
water and sanitation systems, reinforces the assumption that they rely on natural
resources in their daily existence. This reliance extends to the use of natural materials
in the creation of indigenous music, forming an inseparable bond between nature and
people within these communities.
It becomes paramount, then, to underscore the intrinsic relationship between
nature and these communities in the development of urban spaces. The term ‘indig-
enous’ often finds itself relegated to the ‘rural’ realm, partly because it carries asso-
ciations with underdeveloped, culturally oriented, and less educated populations or
those seemingly incongruent with the conventions of mainstream public performance
culture [36]. Consequently, any urban planning aimed at accommodating indigenous
performances should transcend the mere physical design of spaces and embrace a
holistic perspective that considers the ecological coexistence of these communities
alongside the natural world.
The incorporation of indigenous practices and performances into urban spaces
can yield a plethora of benefits for cities, particularly within the realms of education
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
68
and the broader creative arts industry. Indigenous performances serve as valuable
educational tools, offering insights into the cultural heritage, traditions, and wis-
dom of these communities. Additionally, they contribute to the rich tapestry of the
creative arts industry, infusing it with diverse and authentic expressions that can
captivate audiences and enrich the cultural landscape of urban environments [37].
In essence, recognizing the profound connection between indigenous practices and
nature, and integrating this understanding into urban live, not only promotes cultural
preservation but also fosters a more inclusive and culturally vibrant urban fabric that
celebrates the invaluable contributions of indigenous communities to the broader
tapestry of city life [38].
4. Current efforts in the right direction and case study
UNESCO, as a prominent international body, holds a profound stake in the
preservation of indigenous knowledge. Consequently, it wields considerable influence
and can play a pivotal role in advocating for the inclusion of indigenous performances
within urban areas on a global scale. This influence extends to a vast array of coun-
tries, particularly those that have entered into agreements with UNESCO, pledging
their commitment to the promotion and safeguarding of cultural diversity [39–41].
These governments are bound by the conventions established by UNESCO, which
serve as guiding principles for policy change. Non-compliance with these conventions
could potentially result in the loss of their participation and membership status. In
this regard, UNESCO possesses substantial political clout to enforce policies geared
toward the preservation of endangered cultures, especially indigenous ones teetering
on the brink of extinction.
Furthermore, UNESCO has made substantial commitments to the promotion of
cultural diversity and the protection of intangible heritage, notably through the 2003
and 2005 conventions [39]. These endeavors underscore a mounting concern that the
safeguarding of indigenous music cannot be left solely in the hands of village-based
researchers, scholars, and practitioners. Instead, governments must rise to the chal-
lenge, utilizing urban and environmental planning as potent instruments to influence
policy changes. The aim is to ensure that indigenous music finds its place not only
within rural communities but also within the bustling heart of urban spaces as they
breathe live in city spaces.
When governments actively encourage indigenous practices or establish dedi-
cated urban spaces for these performances, they bring indigenous knowledge into
closer proximity with academics and scholars [42]. This proximity fosters a condu-
cive environment for scholarly inquiry, enabling the documentation and preserva-
tion of this invaluable knowledge. In essence, UNESCO’s involvement serves as a
catalyst for bridging the gap between indigenous cultural heritage and the global
academic community, indigenisation of urban spaces and reinforcing the imperative
of preserving these rich traditions for future generations. Distinguished scholars,
dedicated to integrating previously marginalized subjects into academia, must now
explore novel methods for incorporating indigenous knowledge within institutions
of higher learning [43–45].
Ethnomusicologists, anthropologists, and musicologists have been instrumental
in advocating for the indigenous music performances of various local cultural com-
munities, both on a global scale and within the vast academic context. However, it’s
important to note that their engagement has often remained superficial, primarily
69
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relying on images and pictures of performers and instruments rather than in-depth,
participatory involvement in classroom [46]. These scholarly endeavors have shed
light on the rich tapestry of indigenous musical traditions, unraveling their intrica-
cies and significance. However, a notable limitation lies in the fact that much of the
scholarly discourse remains confined to academic circles, seldom finding its way into
the public domain. Consequently, the very communities whose performances have
been studied may be unaware of the profound contributions their music has made
to the broader cultural landscape. The efforts of academics and researchers to bring
indigenous music performances into urban spaces have facilitated a degree of partici-
patory exchange with practitioners. However, this interaction primarily occurs at the
institutional level, involving students and performers [42, 47, 48].
Ethnomusicology, as a discipline, stands as a beacon in this regard, steadfastly
committed to bringing African music, among others, to the public sphere. Its efforts
continue to take myriad forms, as evidenced in the works of scholars like Mapaya [49]
and Grant [34]. In the early 1960s, a more refined term emerged, seeking to convey
a less pejorative perception of ethnomusicology, and this term was coined as “world
music” as described by Feld [50] to encourage researchers to promote indigenous
music of other cultures. These dedicated researchers have been driven by a compelling
desire to elevate their research beyond the confines of academia, aiming to promote
and propagate indigenous music performances within university, urban spaces and
the globe. This transformative endeavor has given rise to the emerging sub-discipline
of applied ethnomusicology [31], where scholars and practitioners collaborate, forg-
ing vital connections that bridge the gap between research and practice [34].
However, it’s essential to recognize that researchers can only advocate for policy
change through their findings and recommendations. The true impetus for change
lies in the hands of others, particularly urban planners and ecologists. By extending
invitations to indigenous performers into urban spaces, these practitioners gain access
to a broader audience, sharing their invaluable knowledge with a wider spectrum of
society [42]. It is incumbent upon urban planners and ecologists to not only take cog-
nizance of this research but also to delve into its potential contributions to the design
of urban areas that are inherently accommodating of indigenous music performances.
In doing so, they can champion the cause of cultural diversity, fostering an environ-
ment where indigenous practitioners can thrive and where the vibrant tapestry of
cultural expression enriches the urban fabric.
Researchers and scholars have emerged as pivotal catalysts in fostering a sense
of value and recognition among indigenous practitioners—particularly those who
have long languished in the shadow of cultural stereotypes within their rural com-
munities. This phenomenon, often referred to as the ‘local appreciation syndrome,’ is
characterized by a lack of local recognition and appreciation for indigenous practices,
particularly heritage performances. The impact of this syndrome is profound and has
been extensively documented in works by scholars such as Rose [51], Barleet etal.
[52], Marsh [48], and Kennedy [47].
Indigenous music practitioners often find themselves trapped within the confines
of this syndrome, where their contributions go unnoticed or undervalued within their
own communities [31]. The perpetuation of this predicament underscores the press-
ing need for leadership figures particularly those who wield authority and influence
over their subjects. Such leaders possess a unique capacity to champion appreciation
for indigenous music performances, nurturing a cultural ethos where the embodi-
ment of traditional music becomes second nature. In essence, these practitioners
become vessels, carrying their rich heritage forward to the next generation.
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
70
However, the ‘ruralness’ associated with indigenous music has become a double-
edged sword. The forces of globalization and urbanization have exerted a magnetic
pull on young people, drawing them away from their rural roots and, consequently,
their music. Unlike their predecessors, today’s youth often embark on their migra-
tion to urban centres at an earlier stage, often immediately following high school, as
they pursue higher education opportunities in cities. Sadly, the cultural landscape at
tertiary institutions frequently lacks robust representation of indigenous practices.
This void contributes to the neglect of these vital cultural disciplines, as individuals
prioritize studies that promise job security and an improved quality of life, inadver-
tently distancing themselves from their cultural heritage.
Academics, educational institutions, and various civil organizations possess the
unique capacity to wield their knowledge and influence as potent tools for advocating
policy change. Their pivotal role transcends mere social status, extending to their
profound contributions to knowledge production and research. These entities hold
a position of trust and authority within society, thanks to their unwavering com-
mitment to qualitative and quantitative research. This research, in turn, serves as a
cornerstone upon which governments base their informed decisions and policy. As
Carr and Servon [27] astutely observe, “If local policymakers and planners care about
preserving the diverse urban fabric of their neighborhoods, their economic develop-
ment plans must also maintain vernacular culture” ([27], p. 29). In essence, these
academic and institutional pillars contribute not only to the enrichment of knowledge
but also to the preservation of cultural diversity within urban spaces. Furthermore,
they play a pivotal role in providing a sense of equilibrium and stability to society, as
underscored by Quinn [53].
These individuals hold pivotal positions of influence within the realm of urban
planning policy, particularly academics with a profound interest in preserving
indigenous knowledge. They emerge as key catalysts propelling the agency to advo-
cate for policy change in this domain. This is underscored by their indispensable role
in spearheading research expeditions to unearth and document indigenous music
knowledge—a process that often necessitates traversing extensive distances to engage
with practitioners residing in rural enclaves. These research endeavors are not only
financially demanding but also entail a myriad of logistical challenges [42].
However, the academics’ vested interest in championing the cause of indigenous
knowledge preservation fuels their unwavering commitment to overcoming these
impediments. Their dedication to conducting interviews and research, despite the
formidable obstacles, underscores the deep-seated importance they attribute to
both promoting and safeguarding indigenous knowledge for educational purposes.
Additionally, these academics recognize the manifold advantages of fostering indig-
enous music within urban landscapes. Chief among these benefits is the enhanced
proximity to practitioners, which facilitates their own research efforts.
Institutions of higher learning stand as prominent beneficiaries of indigenous
knowledge. These venerable institutions possess rich repositories in the form of
libraries, archives, and museum spaces that house a wealth of indigenous music
heritage, manifested in various mediums such as artifacts, audio recordings, videos,
and visual representations, including sheet music transcriptions. Consequently, these
institutions are uniquely positioned to marshal their collective resources and knowl-
edge production capacities, galvanizing advocacy efforts aimed at reshaping urban
planning policies.
The collaborative advocacy undertaken by higher learning institutions car-
ries manifold advantages. It not only serves to promote and elevate the profile of
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indigenous music within urban spaces but also significantly amplifies access to this
invaluable cultural treasure trove. Moreover, this concerted effort stands to benefit
the institutions’ students, who often grapple with limited access to indigenous
knowledge systems due to financial constraints associated with conducting research
expeditions in remote rural areas. By fostering the presence of indigenous musicians
and their performances in urban settings, access to this profound cultural heritage is
democratized, enhancing the academic pursuits and research opportunities of future
scholars.
In the context of cultural diversity within urban settings, these influential entities
are instrumental in safeguarding indigenous heritage, which can otherwise be eroded
or overshadowed. Their collective ability to empower individuals and effect trans-
formative change, as exemplified by academics, educational institutions, and civic
organizations, assumes paramount significance in the ongoing discourse surrounding
the promotion of indigenous performances within urban landscapes. To create an
inclusive and harmonious urban environment that can embrace a wide array of social
experiences, individuals must heed Aboutorabi’s concept of structuring physical
spaces to align with cultural practices [54]. Non-profit civil society organizations,
should utilize urban physical spaces as platforms to facilitate cultural practice experi-
ences, particularly in the realm of indigenous music performances.
The Radzambo Cultural Foundation, a civil society organization located in the
northern region of South Africa, has emerged as a cultural vanguard with a remark-
able ability to influence policy changes within the realms of creative arts and urban
planning. Nestled within the culturally rich landscape of the Limpopo province, this
organization boasts a storied history spanning over three decades. Its primary mission
revolves around the orchestration of traditional dance competitions, strategically
situated within urban spaces across the Limpopo region.
The Radzambo Cultural Foundation has not only orchestrated these events but has
also forged impactful partnerships, notably with the esteemed University of Venda.
This collaboration extends to the meticulous collection of data encompassing all
traditional performances featured in these competitions. This extensive, data-driven
approach underscores the organization’s commitment to evidence-based advocacy,
making a compelling case for the preservation and promotion of indigenous perform-
ing arts.
Moreover, the Radzambo Cultural Foundation synergizes its efforts with three
local radio stations in the Limpopo region—Phalaphala FM, Munghana Lonene FM,
and Thobela FM. This collaborative nexus harnesses the profound potential of culture
and music performance as unifying forces. As Rodríguez-Sánchezand and Cabedo-
Mas [55] aptly emphasizes, music possesses the inherent power to bridge divides and
reconnect disparate communities. Indigenous music, in particular, has a remarkable
propensity to foster mass participation among community members.
By championing the promotion of indigenous music in urban areas, the Radzambo
Cultural Foundation not only underscores the intrinsic value of cultural identity
within cities but also endeavors to rekindle and reimagine new identities, especially
among the youth and children born in urban spaces where such cultural performances
have been conspicuously absent. The innovative model endorsed by the Limpopo
province serves as a compelling testament to the feasibility of revitalizing indigenous
music performances through the dynamic platform of competitions.
The Department of Basic Education assumes a pivotal role in championing
the promotion and preservation of indigenous music performances within urban
contexts. A notable illustration of this commitment is the spirited competition that
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
72
unfolds among various schools, each vying for the prestigious title of the finest
folklore performance at the culminating event hosted in the illustrious Rhema Bible
Church, situated in the bustling metropolis of Johannesburg. This indigenous perfor-
mance competition serves as an integral component of the broader choral eisteddfod
championship competitions [5, 6, 56].
The exuberant atmosphere of this event offers a poignant reflection of the pro-
found cultural bonds shared by participants and spectators alike. It is a poignant
spectacle where fervent ululations and jubilant celebrations bear testimony to the
deep-seated connections individuals maintain with their cultural heritages within the
bustling confines of the city. The very presence of this dedicated performance space
within the urban landscape underscores a profound yearning among people to forge
and nurture links with their cultural roots, even when residing in urban environments
distant from their ancestral homelands. This yearning for cultural connection serves
as a testament to the enduring significance of culture in individuals’ lives, anchor-
ing their identities and engendering a profound sense of belonging, even amid the
bustling urban milieu where traditions may appear distant but remain vibrantly alive
through these spirited performances.
5. Conclusion
In conclusion, integrating indigenous music performances into the urban
landscape and incorporating their events as a vital part of city life can establish a
robust platform for these traditions. Such inclusion is poised to not only amplify
but also broaden their influence and resilience, ensuring their continued vital-
ity and relevance. It is imperative that indigenous musical performances receive
the same level of recognition and support in terms of dedicated spaces within
the urban fabric as other music genres. Just as theaters, arenas, auditoriums, and
concert halls play an integral role in fostering social cohesion within urban spaces,
providing appropriate venues for indigenous music will contribute to a richer
and more inclusive cultural tapestry within our cities. Incorporating indigenous
music performances into the urban landscape not only enriches the cultural policy
framework but also serves as a catalyst for meaningful social change. This inclusion
fosters an environment that promotes cultural diversity and overall well-being for
all members of society. To promote the preservation of culture and heritage, it is
imperative for the government to proactively foster an environment within urban
spaces that encourages increased participation in indigenous music activities. This
can be achieved by creating more opportunities for these activities to flourish
among urban dwellers.
Living the Heritage through Indigenous Music Competitions
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1003226
73
Author details
Ntshengedzeni EvansNetshivhambe
University of South Africa, SouthAfrica
*Address all correspondence to: netshen@unisa.ac.za
© 2023 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of
the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0),
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original work is properly cited.
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
74
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79
Chapter 6
Positionality of Native People
of Nepal from Indigeneity to
Modernity
NathuramChaudhary
Abstract
Nepal’s indigenous people’s social, cultural, and political status is complex and
constantly changing. This study aims to investigate how modernization has influ-
enced the lives of native Nepalese people in areas such as culture, politics, education,
customary laws, and lifestyles. Using an interpretive research design based on mod-
ernization theory, information was gathered from Barghars (Tharu village chiefs)
through in-depth interviews and secondary sources. Westernization and globaliza-
tion have considerably impacted indigenous Nepalese communities, affecting their
cultural traditions and battles for land rights. Despite these influences, indigenous
communities in Nepal and elsewhere have shown resilience and creativity in preserv-
ing their heritage while adapting to modernity. Collaboration between policymakers,
researchers, and community leaders can lead to comprehensive strategies that respect
indigenous knowledge, protect rights, and promote the growth and well-being of
communities.
Keywords: native people, positionality, indigenous knowledge, westernization,
modernization, customary laws
1. Introduction
Indigenous people’s social, cultural, and political status in Nepal is complex and
evolving. As they transition from traditional ways of life to modernity, their identi-
ties, land rights, and representation in governance structures are deeply affected.
Nepal’s indigenous population is composed of over 125 distinct ethnic groups, accord-
ing to the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) [1]. These
communities, including the Tharu, Tamang, Gurung, and Magar, are at a crossroads
between preserving their unique cultural heritage and participating in a rapidly
changing society. Their diverse languages, practices, and worldviews contribute to
their distinct positionality within Nepal.
This positionality is significantly shaped by their struggle for land and resource
rights. The United Nations has released a report titled “Report on the situation of
indigenous peoples in Nepal” [2]. The report highlights the historical marginalization
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
80
and displacement of indigenous communities in Nepal as a result of land seizures and
unequal distribution of resources. These communities are now striving to reclaim
control over their ancestral lands and implement resource management practices that
align with their traditions. This process of transformation is reshaping their position
within Nepalese society.
Additionally, the representation of indigenous people in politics is extremely
important. Nepal’s 2015 Constitution acknowledges the necessity for proportional
representation of indigenous groups in different levels of government [3]. This
recognition of their unique identity and contribution to the country’s diversity shapes
their involvement in decision-making processes and policy creation. In summary, the
situation of indigenous people in Nepal involves a constant balancing act between
preserving their culture, securing land rights, gaining political representation, and
adapting to modern changes. Their ability to maintain their identity while engaging
with society demonstrates their resilience and desire for a respected place in a chang-
ing Nepal. This issue is multifaceted and influenced by various factors such as history,
culture, politics, and socioeconomic circumstances.
2. Native people of Nepal
In Nepal, the Adivasi Janajati groups are referred to as “indigenous peoples” or
“nationalities” by both the government and the groups themselves when interacting
with national and international entities. These groups are recognized as distinct from
the rest of the population. The term Adivasi in Sanskrit refers to the first or earliest
settlers, while Janajati pertains to population groups that do not belong to the Hindu
varna (caste) system. Adivasi Janajati is a classification used to distinguish culturally
unique groups. These groups’ ancestors inhabited regions of present-day Nepal before
the arrival of the Hindus centuries ago. These groups have been marginalized from
the dominant social and religious hierarchy.
As per the National Foundation for Development of Indigenous Nationalities
(NFDIN) Act of 2002, Adivasi Janajati, which refers to indigenous peoples or
nationalities, are characterized as ethnic groups or communities possessing “their
own mother tongue and traditional customs, unique cultural identity, distinct social
structure and written or oral history of their own” [4].
According to official records, the Government of Nepal recognizes 59 groups as
Adivasi Janajati. These groups, which make up an estimated 35.81–50% of the popula-
tion, are considered indigenous peoples of Nepal. Despite being a significant portion
of the population, they have faced marginalization throughout history in terms of
language, culture, politics, and economic opportunities. Among the indigenous
peoples, the Magar, Tharu, Tamang, Newar, Rai, Gurung, and Limbu are the largest
groups.
As per Article 1 (1.b) of the ILO Convention 169, indigenous peoples are defined
as those who reside in independent countries and are considered indigenous based on
their ancestry from the populations that inhabited the country or geographical region
during conquest, colonization, or the establishment of present state boundaries [5].
These people retain their own social, economic, cultural, and political institutions
regardless of their legal status. This definition is highly relevant to Nepal since the
Hindus fled to Nepal from India in the 11th century and have governed the country’s
political economy since the 18th century. Scholars from Nepal believe that the term
Positionality of Native People of Nepal from Indigeneity to Modernity
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“indigenous” is determined by the factors of “place” and “time.” Whoever is the first
to settle in a particular location is considered the “indigenous” group. In Nepal, the
majority of the nationalities are considered indigenous and are referred to as “indig-
enous nationalities.” As per the Indigenous/Nationalities Act of 2002, “indigenous
nationalities” are defined as those ethnic groups or communities listed in Figure ,
who possess their own unique mother tongue, customs, cultural identity, social
structure, and either written or oral history [6]. The 59 indigenous nationalities are
listed as follows:
. Historical positionality of native people in Nepal
The position of indigenous communities is closely connected to historical
land ownership systems, where traditional ways of life coexisted with the land in
harmony. These systems, which are rooted in indigenous perspectives, highlight
the strong connection between indigenous people and their ancestral territories.
Nepal’s rich history has been shaped by both Hinduism and Buddhism, which
continue to significantly impact the country’s culture, spirituality, and social
norms [7]. These religious beliefs have added depth to the local experience and
cultural heritage. Essentially, Nepal’s past provides a foundation for understanding
the complexity of indigenous identity. It showcases the resilience and adaptability
of these communities as they navigate the challenges and opportunities of modern
life while maintaining their unique identities, cultural heritage, and aspirations for
peaceful coexistence in a rapidly evolving world.
Figure 1.
Indigenous nationalities of Nepal.
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
82
2.1.1 Understanding pre-modern indigenous societies in Nepal
Nepal’s indigenous societies before modern times were complex ecosystems that
incorporated culture, community, and governance with the Himalayan landscapes.
They respected nature, spirituality, and shared values and were known for their
communal living, rich traditions, and unique governance systems. The Kathmandu
Valley’s Newar community showcased their cultural diversity through their grand
festivals such as Indra Jatra, which highlighted their profound spiritual connec-
tions [7]. Social stability was established through their kinship networks, which
influenced the roles and relationships within their communities. Meanwhile, their
economic livelihoods were based on agriculture, livestock rearing, and crafts-
manship. In ancient times, village councils or “panchayats” were responsible for
making collective decisions and resolving conflicts. These councils were an integral
part of the governance structure. The people of these societies had a deep respect
for the natural world and showed reverence for local deities through animism and
shamanism. They lived their daily lives deeply rooted in tradition and intercon-
nectedness, showcasing the harmonious integration of culture, spirituality, and
governance within their intricate tapestries. In the past, village councils called
“panchayats” made decisions and settled disputes. They respected nature and local
deities through animism and shamanism; their culture, spirituality, and gover-
nance were intertwined.
2.1.2 Indigenous participation in Nepalese politics and governance
The involvement of indigenous communities in Nepalese politics and governance
is a significant step toward addressing historical marginalization and promoting
inclusive representation. The Constitution of Nepal 2015 recognizes the rights of
indigenous communities and aims to ensure their active participation in decision-
making processes at various levels. In the recent General Election for the Elected
House of Representatives, which had taken place on November 20, 2022, out of the
total number of elected parliamentarians, 54% (267) were from the dominant Khas
Arya caste group, 25% (41) were from Indigenous Peoples, 27% (28) were Madhesi,
0.6% (1) were from Dalit, and none were from Muslim. It is worth noting that out of
the 41 elected Indigenous Peoples, nine were Newar, six were Tharu, five were Magar,
five were Rai, five were Gurung, and four were Tamang. However, despite being
Indigenous by birth, the elected members do not represent Indigenous Peoples but
only the political parties they are affiliated with. Unfortunately, no political party in
Nepal is currently advocating for the rights of Indigenous Peoples.
2.2 Influence of external forces on indigenous communities
The impact of external forces, such as colonization and globalization, has deeply
affected the indigenous communities in Nepal. These forces, influenced by both
historical events and modern trends, have significantly altered the cultural, social,
economic, and political aspects of these communities’ existence. This extensive
study examines the complex effects of colonization and globalization on indigenous
communities.
Nepal’s indigenous communities were affected by colonialism, despite the country
itself never being colonized. The neighboring regions that underwent colonization
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brought with them colonial ideologies and socioeconomic changes that spread to the
border regions of Nepal. Bista’s work in 1967 found that the British colonial rule in
India and Tibet’s interactions with foreign powers profoundly impacted trade net-
works, political dynamics, and cultural exchanges within Nepal’s border regions [8].
This exposure to external influences resulted in changes to traditional trade routes
and sociocultural practices of indigenous communities.
The impact of globalization, marked by increased connectivity and the growth
of market-driven economies, has brought both opportunities and challenges to the
native communities of Nepal. As modern technologies, media, and market-oriented
economies have spread, these communities have become part of global advancements.
While this has opened doors to greater access to information and economic opportu-
nities, it has also endangered indigenous cultures from losing their uniqueness and
vitality [9].
The influences of colonization and globalization on the indigenous lifestyles of
Nepal can be categorized as follows:
2.2.1 Cultural transformation and identity
Indigenous cultural identities have been significantly impacted by colonization
and globalization. Western education, religion, and languages introduced during
colonization disrupted traditional knowledge transmission systems. Moreover, as
Maharjan point out, the prevalence of external norms disseminated through mass
media and popular culture as a result of globalization can potentially overshadow
indigenous cultural practices and diminish localization [10].
2.2.2 Land rights and displacement
The impact of colonization and globalization on the territorial rights of indigenous
communities has been significant. Historical treaties and borders established by
colonial powers have influenced the use of land and territorial integrity of these com-
munities. Unfortunately, the pursuit of globalization has often resulted in resource
extraction and development projects that lead to land grabs and displacement,
disproportionately affecting indigenous groups [11].
2.2.3 Economic changes and inequality
Globalization has affected Nepal, bringing economic changes that impact indig-
enous peoples. Access to global markets can benefit indigenous entrepreneurs but
exacerbate economic inequalities and create socioeconomic disparities due to limited
resources.
2.2.4 Political representation and rights
Colonization and globalization have influenced indigenous communities’ political
representation and rights. Colonization’s legacy left indigenous communities mar-
ginalized within national political systems [8]. Globalization’s emphasis on human
rights and indigenous rights movements, often triggered by transnational advocacy,
has led to increased awareness of indigenous issues and policy changes at national and
international levels [12].
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
84
2.2.5 Cultural revitalization and resistance
Although colonization and globalization have posed numerous challenges, they
have also sparked cultural revitalization and resistance among indigenous commu-
nities. By leveraging global platforms, these communities are proudly showcasing
their cultural heritage and asserting their rights [13]. In the face of external pres-
sures, there has been a growing momentum toward reviving traditional practices,
languages, and governance systems as indigenous communities strive to preserve
their culture.
In brief, the impact of colonization and globalization on indigenous communities
in Nepal has been considerable, affecting diverse aspects of their existence, such as
cultural transformations and land right battles. Nevertheless, despite the obstacles
encountered, indigenous communities have shown remarkable resilience and adapt-
ability in navigating a dynamic world while preserving their identities and rights.
Striking a balance between reaping the advantages of globalization and preserving
indigenous heritage is crucial for their long-term development.
2.3 Interconnectedness of positionality, indigenous, and modernity
In our rapidly evolving society, it is essential to understand the nuances of terms
such as “positionality,” “indigenous,” and “modernity” in order to fully grasp the
intricate factors that shape individual and collective identities. These words encapsu-
late complex ideas that are deeply rooted in historical, cultural, and social contexts,
impacting our perspectives on diverse societies and their connections.
Understanding the relationship between these terms is of utmost importance in
the context of indigenous communities adapting to the modern society. The manner
in which indigenous people assimilate into rapidly changing societies is a reflection of
their unique identities and experiences as they navigate contemporary influences. By
comprehending their positionality, we can gain a better understanding of the intrica-
cies of their challenges and opportunities, such as their struggles for land rights and
endeavors to safeguard their cultural heritage.
The relationship between indigenous communities and modernity is complex.
Indigenous communities face the difficult task of preserving their cultural heritage
while embracing the modern way of life that has become globalized. This transition
requires a delicate balance between cultural authenticity and adaptation to modern
realities. While modernity brings benefits such as economic growth, education, and
political representation, it also poses challenges such as assimilation, loss of land, and
the erosion of traditional knowledge, which can threaten their cultural identity [14].
Navigating their place within modern society poses a complex challenge to indig-
enous communities in Nepal. Their endeavor to uphold their cultural identity involves
the use of traditional knowledge and practices while also incorporating modern
elements into their lifestyles. Despite modern education and digital platforms,
indigenous languages and rituals continue to be crucial to their culture. This interplay
highlights the adaptability of indigenous communities to preserve their heritage while
actively engaging in a changing society [15].
In conclusion, a comprehensive comprehension of positionality, indigenous
identity, and modernity provides valuable insight into the intricate interplay between
tradition and change, self-determination, and adaptation. The trials and triumphs
of indigenous communities in contemporary environments showcase their resilience
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and expertise in successfully navigating the complexities of a globalized world while
simultaneously upholding their distinct cultural identities.
2.4 Indigenous identity and heritage
Nepal is home to a diverse range of indigenous groups, each with their own unique
contribution to the country’s cultural landscape. The National Statistics Office reports
that there are over 125 different indigenous communities in Nepal. The Tamang com-
munity, with a population of around 1.7 million, primarily resides in the central and
northern regions. The Sherpa community, known for its mountaineering legacy, has
a population of approximately 150,000 and inhabits the high Himalayas. The Gurung
community, with approximately 543,000 members, resides mainly in the Annapurna
and Manaslu regions. The Tharu community, with a population of around 1.8 mil-
lion, is located in the Terai plains and is known for its unique languages and cultural
practices. The Newar community, with approximately 1.3 million people, resides in
the Kathmandu Valley [16]. These indigenous groups, among others, contribute to
Nepal’s diverse cultural tapestry, each preserving their languages, traditions, and
heritage while navigating the complexities of modernity.
2.5 Challenges in preserving indigenous identity amid modern influences
Preserving indigenous identity in the face of modern influences is difficult.
Globalization, urbanization, and technology can introduce foreign values and
practices that threaten traditional ways of life. Indigenous communities in Nepal
and elsewhere face these challenges in maintaining their cultural heritage and
self-governance.
2.5.1 Cultural erosion and homogenization
One of the major challenges that traditional cultures encounter is the steady ero-
sion of their customs. The widespread exposure to global media and popular culture
has led younger generations to adopt mainstream values, disregarding indigenous
ceremonies, dialects, and artistic expressions. Furthermore, the transition from
spoken traditions to written languages can displace indigenous tongues, resulting in
the forfeiture of intricate indigenous [17].
2.5.2 Land dispossession and displacement
Globalization can harm indigenous communities by displacing them from their
ancestral lands and erasing their traditional knowledge tied to specific landscapes.
This loss can have devastating impacts on their cultural, spiritual, and personal
identity.
2.5.3 Empowerment and self-determination
The United Nations recognized in 2007 that the preservation of indigenous iden-
tity is intricately tied to the pursuit of self-determination and political representation.
Indigenous communities frequently encounter difficulties in asserting their rights in
nation-states that prioritize dominant cultures and economic interests. As a result,
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
86
they face the challenge of securing acknowledgment, independence, and the ability to
make choices in accordance with their cultural beliefs.
2.5.4 Resilience and strategies for preservation
Indigenous communities are truly remarkable in their ability to adapt and preserve
their rich culture despite facing numerous challenges. Their perseverance shines
through initiatives such as language revitalization, cultural education programs,
and adaption of traditional practices to modern contexts. It is incredibly inspiring to
witness their efforts to use modern technology to preserve their oral histories and tra-
ditional knowledge, which are gaining momentum. Their dedication to their heritage
is truly commendable, and we are fortunate to learn from their wisdom and experi-
ences. In Nepal, the Tamang Language and Culture Preservation Committee has
taken steps to promote their language and traditions through schools and community
events. Similarly, the Tharu community’s engagement in ecological research that fuses
traditional knowledge with modern conservation strategies regarding agriculture
showcases a way to harmonize traditional wisdom with contemporary challenges [18].
Despite modern influences, indigenous communities in Nepal and elsewhere are
finding ways to preserve their heritage while adapting to modernity. Their resilience
and creativity demonstrate a strong dedication to their distinct identities and cultural
traditions in a rapidly changing world.
2.6 Shifting from indigeneity to modernity
Urbanization and globalization have disrupted indigenous communities’ tradi-
tional livelihoods and resource management practices. When these communities
move from subsistence-based economies to urban environments, their traditional
agriculture, hunting, fishing, and craftsmanship practices can be negatively affected.
Many young people are attracted to urban wage labor, which can lead to a discon-
nection between indigenous people and their ancestral lands. This can cause the loss
of traditional ecological knowledge related to resource management, as the deep
understanding of local ecosystems is not passed down from one generation to another
[15]. Globalization can disrupt indigenous resource management practices when com-
munities engage in extractive industries or unsustainable practices to meet external
demands. This disruption undermines cultural cohesion and threatens the balance
between indigenous communities and their environment, endangering their sustain-
able resource management systems [19].
The interplay between modern education and indigenous knowledge systems in
Nepal is complex, requiring a delicate balance between adopting innovative teaching
methods while safeguarding ancient wisdom. As modern education gains ground,
there are noticeable shifts in the way indigenous knowledge is viewed, transmitted,
and assimilated into contemporary culture.
The perception toward the traditional social organizational system (Barghar
System) of Tharu community, the fourth-largest population of Nepal, the selection
procedure of the system, and the actors in the system are changed due to the formal
education system of Nepal. Most Tharu people are getting education day by day and
obtaining the mainstreaming traditions, culture formal school system, as well as
social media. Generally, there are Barghars (village chief), Likhandariya (secretary),
Guruwa (The Tharu priest), Chirakya (the messenger), Chaukidaar (watchman),
Lohra (blacksmith), and Darjiwa (Tailor). The perception toward all the actors of
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the customary laws has been changed; i.e; mostly male household heads have partici-
pated in the system, but nowadays, female household heads can be seen in the Tharu
community. Similarly, female village chiefs and other actors are also elected in some
Tharu villages. Not only is the selection phenomenon the common consensus of the
villagers, but also the voting system is adopted in some villages. The role of the actors
is overtaken by the local representatives of the local government. This can be summa-
rized as follows in the Table .
. Impact of modern education on indigenous knowledge systems
In Nepal, modern education can equip indigenous youth with essential skills, literacy,
and economic and social growth prospects. Nonetheless, it also presents difficulties in
upholding indigenous knowledge due to its emphasis on dominant languages, cultures,
and curricula that may contradict traditional practices. Our analysis focuses on the
effects of modern education on indigenous knowledge systems in Nepal.
Formal learning settings in modern education differ from indigenous ones.
Indigenous knowledge is commonly transmitted through experiential learning, oral
traditions, and community engagement, whereas modern education emphasizes
classroom-based, text-centric learning. The current change may result in the exclu-
sion of indigenous knowledge and restrict its dissemination. Along with this, modern
education predominantly uses dominant languages in instruction, which can lead
to language shifts and the erosion of indigenous languages. Modern education may
prioritize skills relevant to urban and formal sectors, causing a decline in traditional
skills and knowledge related to subsistence agriculture, natural resource manage-
ment, and craftsmanship.
Bilingual and multilingual education models are being promoted to ensure that
indigenous languages remain relevant. These models allow indigenous students
to learn in both their mother tongue and the dominant language, fostering a sense
of cultural identity while gaining modern education. Thus, the impact of modern
education on indigenous knowledge systems in Nepal is a nuanced interplay between
adaptation and challenges. While modern education offers opportunities for advance-
ment, it can also lead to the erosion of indigenous languages, practices, and ways of
knowing. Efforts to integrate indigenous knowledge into education, promote bilin-
gualism, and empower indigenous communities to shape their education can help
balance modernization and cultural preservation.
Aspects In ancient time Present time
Perceptions Village chief Village leader
Actors of the system Barghars (village chief),
Likhandariya (secretary), Guruwa
(The Tharu priest), Chirakya
(the messenger), Chaukidaar
(watchman), Lohra (blacksmith),
Darjiwa (Tailor).
Vice-Barghar like vice president is
included, Chirakya (the messenger)
and Chaukidaar (watchman) is
combined, Lohra (blacksmith) &
Darjiwa (Tailor) are optional.
Role of the actors Judiciary, leadership,
administrative, planning and
development, rituals and unity
Domination of local representatives
and limited to judiciary, rituals, and
unity.
Table 1.
Perceptions of the Barghar system within the Tharu community.
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
88
2.8 Resilience and adaptation among native people
The indigenous communities in Nepal have shown incredible resilience in the
face of cultural change. They have adapted to changing circumstances while still
preserving their unique identities and traditional practices. These stories of resilience
highlight the strength, innovation, and unwavering dedication of Nepal’s indigenous
people to maintain their cultural heritage despite modern challenges.
There are many stories of indigenous resilience in Nepal that highlight the impres-
sive determination of these communities to protect their cultural identities amidst
cultural shifts. Through asserting their rights, adopting new technologies, and com-
bining traditional practices with contemporary contexts, the indigenous people of
Nepal prove that they can flourish while still honoring their heritage. These inspiring
stories encourage us to appreciate and support the resilience of indigenous communi-
ties, recognizing their valuable contributions to Nepal’s diverse cultural fabric.
2.8.1 Story 1: The Tharu Community’s land rights struggle
The Tharu indigenous community has a strong bond with the forests and rivers of the
Terai region. Unfortunately, development projects and encroachment have threatened
their way of life and caused their displacement. Tharu activists have taken action to
fight for their land rights and the protection of their traditional territories to address this
issue. Their unwavering advocacy efforts have resulted in the creation of Tharuhat as an
autonomous region, which safeguards their land and cultural practices [20].
2.8.2 Story 2: Indigenous youth promoting traditional music and dance
Indigenous youth from different communities, such as Newar, Gurung, and Magar,
are leading the way in preserving and promoting traditional music and dance forms. The
Newar musical culture, which was once believed to be a timeless tradition that has lasted
for hundreds of years, is now going through major changes in both content and context
due to media, migration, and modernization. In a short amount of time, there has been a
noticeable rise in female involvement in traditional music, as well as a reduction in caste
barriers. Some traditional musicians are also starting to monetize their work. Changes
in repertoire, playing style, instrument modifications, and fusion with other musical
genres and instruments have transformed the music [21].
2.9 Strategies for preserving core values while adapting to modern circumstances
in Nepal
In Nepal, there is a growing realization of the significance of preserving indig-
enous cultures and wisdom in modern educational frameworks. As a result, there are
efforts to incorporate traditional knowledge into formal education systems. These
initiatives strive to bridge the gap between traditional practices and contemporary
learning, thereby ensuring the continued thriving of indigenous knowledge. Here, we
explore notable efforts and their impact.
2.9.1 Curriculum reforms and inclusion
Nepal’s national curriculum for school education 2019 includes provisions for
integrating indigenous knowledge, culture, and values into formal education.
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Theframework emphasizes the inclusion of local contexts, languages, and knowledge
systems in textbooks and teaching methods [22].
2.9.2 Multilingual education (MLE) programs
MLE programs in Nepal focus on teaching indigenous children in their mother
tongue, helping to bridge the gap between their cultural backgrounds and formal
education. These programs recognize that learning in one’s own language enhances
comprehension and cultural preservation [23].
2.9.3 Cultural resource Centers
Numerous schools in Nepal have established cultural resource centers that serve as
hubs for indigenous knowledge. These centers host workshops, exhibitions, and semi-
nars on traditional practices, crafts, and ecological wisdom, enriching the educational
experience.
2.9.4 Teacher training and capacity building
Efforts have been made to train teachers in indigenous communities to integrate
traditional knowledge into their teaching methodologies. Equipped with both modern
pedagogies and indigenous insights, teachers can create culturally relevant learning
experiences [23].
2.9.5 Ethnographic documentation and textbooks
Collaborations between researchers, indigenous experts, and educators have
resulted in ethnographic documentation and the creation of textbooks that reflect
indigenous knowledge. These resources serve as valuable references for students and
teachers alike.
2.9.6 Cultural exchange programs
Interactions between indigenous elders and students are organized as part of
cultural exchange programs. These programs enable direct engagement with tradi-
tional practitioners, fostering experiential learning and a deeper understanding of
indigenous knowledge.
2.9.7 Community-driven initiatives
Indigenous communities themselves have initiated efforts to integrate their
knowledge into education. Elders and traditional practitioners play active roles in
curriculum development, ensuring the accurate transmission of cultural values and
practices.
2.9.8 Recognition of informal learning
Efforts are underway to recognize informal learning settings, such as commu-
nity gatherings and cultural events, as valuable sites of knowledge transmission.
This acknowledgment enhances the status of indigenous knowledge within formal
education.
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
90
The endeavors to incorporate traditional knowledge into formal education sys-
tems in Nepal highlight the significance of cultural conservation and inclusiveness.
These initiatives encourage native communities to take part in molding their educa-
tion, ensuring that their knowledge and customs are not only safeguarded but also
acknowledged within contemporary learning environments.
2.10 Importance of intergenerational knowledge transfer in Nepal
Intergenerational knowledge transfer is crucial for maintaining traditional
practices that are deeply embedded in Nepal’s indigenous cultures. The skills and ritu-
als associated with agriculture, handicrafts, and healing practices are passed down
through generations. Indigenous knowledge about climate patterns, local ecosystems,
and natural resource management is invaluable for adapting to changing environ-
mental conditions in Nepal. This knowledge is often shared through oral traditions
and must be transmitted to younger generations [24]. Intergenerational knowledge
transfer empowers young people to engage with their cultural heritage and actively
participate in the preservation of their identity. Youth involvement in traditional
activities fosters a sense of pride and ownership [23].
2.11 Future prospects for indigenous communities in Nepal
Sustainable Development and Livelihoods: The future for indigenous communities in
Nepal hinges on sustainable development that respects their cultural values and tradi-
tional knowledge. Integrating indigenous perspectives into development planning can
lead to more resilient livelihoods, incorporating modern and traditional practices.
In the future, there will be ongoing efforts to revive and promote indigenous
languages, arts, and practices in the education system. Collaborations between
community-led initiatives and educational institutions can ensure the integration of
indigenous knowledge into curricula while empowering younger generations.
2.12 Recommendations for policymakers, researchers, and community leaders
• Policymakers should involve indigenous communities in policy formulation to
align with their values, aspirations, and sustainable development goals.
• Collaborating with indigenous experts, researchers can help preserve traditional
knowledge, languages, and practices while respecting ethical and cultural
considerations.
• Indigenous institutions safeguard cultural heritage and manage resources.
Building their capacity ensures effective representation and voice of indigenous
communities.
• Collaborations between indigenous experts, researchers, and practitioners can
lead to holistic solutions by integrating indigenous knowledge with modern
science.
• Development projects should take into account the cultural sensitivity and needs
of indigenous communities while emphasizing the coexistence of modernization
and traditional values.
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• Advocate for the integration of indigenous knowledge and cultural heritage
in formal education to promote cultural pride, empower youth, and preserve
traditional wisdom.
• Prioritize active engagement with indigenous communities in development
projects, respecting their expertise and insights.
• Collaborate with schools, communities, and language experts to revitalize
indigenous languages and preserve cultural identity.
The future of indigenous communities in Nepal relies on sustainable development,
preservation of culture, and inclusive policies. Collaboration between policymakers,
researchers, and community leaders can lead to comprehensive strategies that respect
indigenous knowledge, protect rights, and promote the growth and well-being of
communities.
3. Conclusion
In conclusion, this chapter comprehensively explores the complex relationship
between tradition and modernity in indigenous Nepali communities, revealing key
findings and insights. This study delves into the intricate and ever-changing con-
nection between tradition and modernity in Nepalese indigenous communities. By
applying a multifaceted approach, many more significant discoveries and perspec-
tives were made. Indigenous people in Nepal have a deep connection to their ancestral
lands and a rich cultural diversity. They have demonstrated impressive resilience in
the face of cultural changes, adapting traditional practices to modern circumstances
while striving to uphold their core values. The transfer of knowledge between
generations has become crucial for ensuring cultural continuity and sustainability.
Indigenous wisdom, including traditional practices, ecological knowledge, and
language, acts as a repository of ancestral heritage that enhances the lives of younger
generations. It is vital to preserve indigenous languages, which are often at the brink
of extinction, as a fundamental strategy for maintaining cultural identity.
In addition, this chapter discusses how Westernization and globalization have
impacted indigenous communities. These external factors have brought about
obstacles and chances for change, influencing how indigenous populations interact
with modern society. Though traditional ways of life and resource management have
been disrupted, these external influences have also allowed indigenous people to
become involved in politics and governance. Nepal has a range of indigenous groups,
each with their own distinct traditions, languages, and customs. These communities,
including the Tharu, Tamang, and Gurung, have developed different methods of
preserving their cultural values while also adjusting to modern times.
Language, traditional knowledge, and cultural practices have been emphasized
in preserving indigenous identity. Indigenous languages are especially crucial for
education, preserving culture, and managing resources sustainably. It is believed
that incorporating traditional knowledge into formal education systems is a vital step
toward cultural preservation and empowerment. Preserving indigenous identity in
the face of urbanization and globalization requires innovative approaches to bal-
ance tradition and modernity, as these processes disrupt traditional livelihoods and
resource management.
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
92
To sum up, the interaction between tradition and modernity in Nepal’s indigenous
communities is complex and includes resilience, adaptation, and a strong dedication
to preserving their culture. This chapter highlights the need for ongoing discussions
and research on how these communities transition in Nepal. Recognizing that these
communities are leading global efforts to merge the past and future is important. The
dynamic relationship between tradition and modernity is not a simple choice, but a
continuum where indigenous communities in Nepal and beyond can continue to chart
their path toward a more sustainable and inclusive future. In conclusion, the intricate
interplay between tradition and modernity within Nepal’s indigenous communities
is multifaceted, encompassing resilience, adaptation, and a steadfast commitment to
preserving their cultural heritage.
Author details
NathuramChaudhary
Far-Western University, Tikapur Multiple Campus, Tikapur, Nepal
*Address all correspondence to: nathuramsir@gmail.com
© 2023 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of
the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0),
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original work is properly cited.
Positionality of Native People of Nepal from Indigeneity to Modernity
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1002967
93
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Chapter 7
Indigenous Rituals, Panacea
for Peace Building, Conflict
Management and National
Development in Africa
Ude BasseyObeten
Abstract
Africa continent has a long and complex history and a sociocultural ecosystem
imbued with ritual practices that make it particularistic and distinct from the rest
of the continents and this has not been appreciated by the global community. Africa
as the second largest and second most populous continent after Asia in both respects
in the world accounts for about 18% of the world’s human population and is endowed
with many indigenous spectacles’ diversities of cultural ritual practices heritage, and
spiritual activities. Despite the rich cultural heritage and ritual practices, Africa has
remained a hub for conflict in the world’s psycho-political, religious, and economic
map. These ritual practices form a matrix in promoting communications, fraternity,
and integrations for indigenous self-dignity and identity creation, and collectively
convoke a sense of commonality reinforcing social, economic, and cultural ties, and
mutually sustaining orientations for enhanced peace-building initiatives, conflict
management, and resolution, and a panacea for national cohesion and development
within the African space.
Keywords: indigenous, rituals, peacebuilding, conflict management, national
development
1. Introduction
Africa as a continent has several complex multifaceted institutions that have lasted
over time, adapting to changing contexts while retaining the core content and func-
tions; holding historical cultural significances and indigenous ritual practices. Africa
is endowed with rich indigenous rituals, culture and heritage, and spiritual activities.
However, the continent has remained a hub for conflicts in the world’s psycho-
political, religious, and economic map of the world [1, 2]. Ritual practices are abstract
and reified notions of religion with no consensual definition [3]. Cultural beliefs
and practices find expression through rituals, rites of passage or initiation are some
most common ritual practices in Africa. Africa is a multi-ethnic and diverse group,
language, rituals, and cultural practices are obvious and symbolic in all activities
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
96
and actions. Africa could be considered a ‘paradox—victorian plenty’, while poverty
engulfs the continent. In 2023 alone there are five Military coups and takeovers in
Mali, Niger, Congo, Gabon, and Guinea, while Nigeria, Cameroon, Liberia, etc. are
riddled with terrorism and religious conflicts farmers and pastoralist conflicts etc.
This goes to say that, Africa can be characteristically described as ‘Zeus pandora’s box’
mixed and grilled with continued conflicts, poverty, hunger, disease, civil distur-
bance, military insurrections, guerrilla warfare, war of attrition, revolt domestic
rebellions, corruption, bad leadership, religious intolerance, terrorism, social unrest
and political instability which can be seen across Africa, creating humanitarian crises
and emergencies which has an adverse effect in peacebuilding and national develop-
ment as noted by the United Nations High Commission for refugee [4].
The continent of Africa has a long and complex history and sociocultural ecosys-
tem imbued with indigenous ritual practices that make it particularistic and distinct
from the rest of the continents. Africa accounts for about 18% of the world’s human
population making it the second largest and second most populous continent after
Asia in both respects in the world, and is endowed with many indigenous spectacles
and diversities of cultural and religious ritual practices giving it a unique heritage [5].
These African ritual practices form a cementing matrix in promoting communalism,
mutuality, communications, fraternity, and integrations for indigenous self-dignity
and identity creation, that collectively convokes a sense of commonality that rein-
forces social, economic, and cultural ties, by mutually sustaining orientations for
enhanced peace-building initiatives, conflict management and resolution, national
cohesion, and development [6–8].
In its aboriginal nature, Africa and Africa have developed different mechanisms
to address and resolve conflicts, security challenges, and development. The values of
truth, trust, communalism, sense of identity, democratic ideals, and good governance
have significantly influenced the use of rituals in almost all facets of African life
because every individual is conscious of the negative implication of failing to keep to
terms with the rituals, and taboos. That is why, not much of her conflicts were known
not until the invasion of the continent by the Western world. The de-copulation,
plundering of African traditional and indigenous economy, social system and tech-
nology, religion, and cultural ritual, and the introduction of Christianity and Islam
around the nineteenth century gave way to massive exploitation of natural resources
and labor force for the accumulation of capital to be reinvested in Europe. This in its
true sense affirms that Africa as a continent had a meaningful past before the inva-
sion of the colonialists. African traditional economy was driven by taboos and ritual
performance that were cultural obligations and carries with it, serious sanctions
and punishment in the event of failure or violation. It is the invasion of the African
continent by the so-called European new reformers that hampered the economic,
social, and cultural progress in the colonized territories and introduced obsolete
forms of social relations that were alien to the natives, thus creating discord between
the nationalities and tribes through the implantation of political, economic, military
and cultural hegemony. This hegemony has equally contributed in no small measure
to undermining Africa’s socioeconomic and religio-cultural development, by the
ordering of African cultural, political, religious, and economic features as well as pro-
moting the worst form of alienated individualism, conflicts without a corresponding
social responsibility (Rodney). Africans hold tenaciously to their beliefs and practices
and observance of rules, customs, and laws are primarily informed by the taboos,
cultural and rituals practices, forming moral codes and ethics that hold the society
and promote interconnectedness and mutuality [9].
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2. Conceptual clarification-African ritual practices
Rituals are cultural emblems of groups or classes’ distinctive way of life. This means,
ideas of group embodied in institutions, social relations, systems of belief, mores and
customs, the use of objects and material life [10], enigmatic organization of societies,
cults, and cultural or religious sects providing valuable insight in all human interactions
and relationships. Ohaja and Anyim [3] and Kyalo [11], noted that in African cosmology,
ritual practices are routine and symbolic actions and repetitive activities through which
connections are made with what is considered to be the most valuable dimension of life.
According to Mkenda [6], religion and ritual practices are an aspect of the superstruc-
ture of a society. Thus, rituals are features of culture and a variant tapestry of African
society. African societies are embroiled in religious and cultural rituals and are collective
and integrative elements and forces in all ramifications of the economy, spirituality, and
socio-cultural features. Whenever rituals are performed in any community, they affect
everybody in the community [12], which means rituals take the force of society and
affect every facet of society’s development. Rituals to Africans engender group cohesion
and collective consciousness of the people. This assertion according to Hogan [13] and
Hinniells [14], views ritual as practical aspects of the cultural and religious life of the
people whose admissibility promotes behavioral change, conformity, and socioeconomic
drive within the given society. Hogan further asserts that these rituals express sacred
values that are harnessed to promote communalism, mutuality, and a sense of commit-
ment and responsibility in terms of association, communication, relationship, trading,
and development. African like any other race are social and ritual animals and therefore
cannot be separated from it Hinniells [14]. There are both public and private rituals;
Public rituals are collective community rituals used to celebrate important events in the
social, spiritual cultural, and economic life of the society. It is pervasive and permeates
all aspects and facets of a community’s life.
Etymologically, the word or concept of ‘ritual’ is derived from the Latin word
ritus, which means “customs” or “rites”, “repeated activities and actions that are
always carried out in the same way, and to great extent is part of religious and cultural
ceremonies” [15]. It is a repeated set and series of action, social and cultural activi-
ties rooted in common and shared values. The Oxford Advanced Dictionary [15,
16] defined rituals as symbolic actions concerning the supernatural beings and the
mystical; “actions that are always carried out at particular fixed times, especially as
part of religious or other ceremonies. Also, Kyalo [11], Sen [17] and Mbiti [18] noted
that ritual is a dramatization of ideals, values, and expectations; a bridge between
ideas and practical daily life and culturally-modeled symbolic action, which bears
enduring sign and image of a particular culture with its collection and aggregation
of values and beliefs. Etim observed that rituals are symbolic and patterned action
expressed and communicates some hidden, mysterious and untraceable realities with
unknown qualities that would otherwise have remained hidden and unable to express.
This explains why it is mostly used in religious activities and ceremonies as a way of
bridging the gap between the sacred and the profane. Embedded in rituals too are
the answers to esoteric, supersensual and metaphysical questions like the existence
of God, the problem of evil and deity, how does healing take place, reproduction,
the nature of the soul, life after death, the nature of man, the nature of reality, etc.
[11, 19]. It confers status and has a transforming role that is metaphysical, and avenue
for making present-in-time and space actions that are futuristic; tacitly providing
ground for conquering space and empowering man in his desire to control nature for
his advantage [11, 19].
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
According to Mbiti [18] and Lewis [20]; rituals in African cosmology are per-
formed for certain and specific purposes, events, and time characteristically, such as
fertility, farming season, success or failure, illness, productivity, harvest [new yam,
festivals] among the Yako [Yakuur] of Southern Nigeria, Fishing ‘agungu’ and ‘Eso’
festivals among the Yoruba of the Western Nigeria, west Africa, also in the Central
Africa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Camerron, Burundi, Zambia,
Ghana, Uganda and Malawi etc. The West and Central African ritual and religious
practices generally, manifest themselves in communal ceremonies or divinatory and
preternatural means and rites in which members of the community, are overcome
by force [or ashe, nyama, etc.] [2]. One religious ceremony practiced in Gabon and
Cameroon is the ‘Okuyi’, practiced by several Bantu ethnic groups to elevate their
consciousness [11]. The people in these countries who follow traditional religious
practices often venerate ancestors through rituals and worship the land or a “divin-
ity” through “religious cults” or “ancestral and shrine cults”, respectively for certain
and various outcomes [2]. It is important to note that within the African continent
traditional religious practices are similar in all attributes and form and this is what
make Africa unique and cohesive (Figures –).
These rituals are offered as a means of appeasement, atonement, thanksgiv-
ing, celebrations of chieftaincy and title awards, wealth, birth, marriage, death,
and during initiation ceremonies to age grades, associations, cult groups, illness
treatment, divination, etc. However, these rituals have purpose-driven contents that
cause the individual and group members to conform to the codes and ethics that,
invariably promote cohesion, love, peaceful coexistence, respect, order, discipline,
Figure 1.
Maiden girls’ rite of passage ritual among the Yakurr people of southern Nigeria. This is a cultural ritual practice
that prepares young girls for adulthood. It is ‘Ekoi’ dance to usher-in the new yam festival. Picture taken 2023.
UdeObeten, 2023.
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Indigenous Rituals, Panacea for Peace Building, Conflict Management and National…
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responsibility, trust, and harmony in the society [6, 11]. All these are placed in
ritual values, that drive and promote social and economic growth, and development
among the group members and society. Rituals engender love and eliminate hatred,
distrust, and criminality in business relations. That is why Africans hold them in
high esteem as sentiments of corporateness, shared values, commitment, mutual
understanding, and communal living are consolidated and enthroned giving rise to
a peaceful atmosphere for businesses to strive, friendship ties are strengthened and
bonds are established [12]. Charles, further asserts that rituals enact and restore
harmony and the spirit of our ancestors are summoned and appeased for the good of
the community while sublimity thereof, enhances peaceful coexistence and harmony.
Ritual practices facilitate better control and transformation energies into positive,
culturally appropriate behavior, thought, and speech and can give rise to and provide
insight into appropriate directions that the individual and community might take
Figure 2.
A young man Moving to the ritual arena for fertility and adulthood initiation rites in Ekori-Yako 2023.
UdeObeten, 2023.
Figure 3.
This is a new yams ritual arena where rituals for fertility and productivity are performed among the
Ekori-Yakurr people of southern Nigeria.
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
100
in accomplishing its goal. These practices are common among the Igbo, Yoruba, and
Nupe people of Nigeria and other culturally similar countries in Africa.
3. Peace building and conflict management
Peace is the most widely desired human condition after security and safety. It is a
political condition that ensures justice, equity, fair play, and social stability, through
formal and informal institutions, norms, and practices that promote mutual coex-
istence and sustainable development in society. On the other hand, conflict is man’s
unending affliction is endemic to human society, and often occurs between and among
individuals and groups [21]. Therefore, the management of conflict is very important
for human coexistence and can be attained through negotiation, mediation, arbitra-
tion, and adjudication. For example, in Igbo land in Southern Nigeria whenever there
is a conflict, dispute, or criminality the suspects are said to swear in an open arena,
or they are shared pieces of meat by the ‘Umumna’ People of the clan to eat, and it
is expected that within a couple of minutes and days, the culprit will confess to the
crime. While among the Yoruba of Nigeria, Mali, and the Benin Republic whenever
there are marital disputes or sexual immorality the Ifa priest or diviner performs
‘magnum’ ritual invocation which causes the culprit’s inability to separate after sexual
intercourse and the penis to get stuck in the vagina, a condition called [penis captivus
or vaginismus]. This is one reason that there is a relative level of promiscuity and infi-
delity, as well as a reduced level of marital and family disorganization. These practices
abound in almost all indigenous African societies and are applied to almost all facets
of life. Among the Yakurr [Yako] Ejagam, Mbembe of southern Nigeria, and Yaoundé,
Manfe, and Duoala of Cameroon. it is easier to identify a criminal through alligator
pepper, and broom rituals. This ritual practice allows the suspect to sit on a stool while
the priest performs the ritual, the broom gets stuck on the culprit’s neck, or the pepper
stuck on his eyes until confession. This makes it easier for the criminal dispensation of
indigenous justice and reduces the incidence of crime and time wasted by law enforce-
ment agencies and of government. There is generally a feeling of commitment and a
sense of bonding as a result of these ritual practices among the people.
However, African Africans’ sense of commitment is anchored on the ‘Ubuntu phi-
losophy’ [‘I’, we exist because you exist], which beliefs so much in the efficacy of ritual
performance and oath-taking towards conflict resolution and management. Once the
oath is administered there is usually absolute peace among the consenting individuals
and communities. The essence of communalism and collectiveness makes it easy for
conflict settlement and management in Africa. For example, from history the tribal
war that claimed lives and property broke out between Ekori and Nkpani communi-
ties in Yakurr of Southern Nigeria and after settlement, the two communities collec-
tively planted a deity and performed ritual ceremonies that have helped to maintain
the two communities without any violence or tribal war for over a century now. This
is the extent to which ritual practices can influence peace-building among communi-
ties. This means that development and national consciousness among Africans can be
influenced by mutual trust through ritual practices because they contain obligations
that prescribe actions, laws, rules, codes, sanctions, punishment, and ethical behav-
iors. Among the Efiks, Ibibio, Ejagan, and Ekoi people of Nigeria, Cameroon, and
Cuba, the Ekpe cultural ritual convokes in the initiates a sense of duty and a call to
unity, and what will progress the society is of utmost importance to them. The Ekpe
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cult and society are a pride because of their unique place in determining and resolving
individual, family, communal, and land disputes and conflicts. It is an agent of social
control and is used in maintaining and enforcement of law and order in society. These
ritual practices therefore are germane to peace conclaves in Africa.
Therefore, peace-building involves conflict resolution and management through
the uprooting of the causes of conflict through mediation, conciliation, power poli-
tics, arbitration, adjustment, and alternative dispute resolution [ADR] [22]. Conflict
management involves a comprehensive interface of activities, accepting the conflict,
active negotiation, compromises, and problem-solving initiatives. Thus, ADR could
be through ritual undertakings. Many ritual practices across Africa promote unity
and peace; the Ifa religion of Yoruba, Nigeria, Eso of Nigeria, Togo, and Benin, Kushite
mythology, the San religion of Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, the Nsibidi Ekpe
religion of Nigeria and Cameron, the Vodou of Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria etc.
The concept and operational principles of Peace-building, the use, and application
of ritual activities are mutually reinforcing in so many ways because the two con-
cepts are people-centered and people-oriented and driven as logical approaches to
a sustainable peace process. Peacebuilding is a multilayer activity directed towards
the resolution of injustice in a nonviolent way, and to transform the cultural and
structural conditions that generate tensions, violence, and deadly or destructive
conflicts. According to Gandhi [23], peace-building processes are likened to the
Indian ‘Ahimsa’, a non-violent struggle and liberation, self-identity freedom that
focused more on ideology to sustain development. It is the development of construc-
tive personal, group, and political relationships and processes across ethnic, religious,
class, national, and racial boundaries. It involves early warning and response efforts
in mitigating conflicts, advocacy work, violence prevention, civilian and military
peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, ceasefire agreements, and the establishment
of peace zones. African Peace initiatives are intertwined and braided in its ubuntu
ideology and ritual life.
On the other hand, conflict management is the application and processes, tools,
and skills used to find creative and respectful ways to resolve and mitigate disagree-
ments and disputes. It implies the ability to resolve conflict collaboratively and
through effective communication mechanism, such as active listening and assertive
speaking [17]. In Africa, one of the easiest and surest ways to resolve issues involving
criminality is through the application of ritual oath-taking where the suspects are
informed of the negative consequences before the oath-taking. It reduces legal tussles,
and time waiting and is usually cost-effective. This approach is presumed to be potent
in resolving disputes and promoting truth, trust, and commitment to values and
actions that can inadvertently guarantee a free and just, equity and egalitarian society,
devoid of corruption, double standards, fear, and poor investment standards among
and along the corridors of trade relations.
According to Onu et al. [24], “the concept of peace seems valid and elusive and
has elicited controversies from scholars, lay persons, analysts and practitioners from
science, religion and philosophy”. Nwolise ([1], p. 249), noted that the “concept of
peace is believed to have root in Anglo-Norman Word ‘pas’, which means freedom
from civil disorder, and the Greek word ‘Eirene’ and Latin Word ‘pax’ rooted from
the Hebrew word ‘shalom’ and Arabic word ‘salaam’ meaning the condition of safety,
Welfare, friendliness, fortune, and prosperity”. However, from African cosmol-
ogy and ontology, the word ‘peace’ has existed in different languages; for example,
among the Yakurr [yako] people the word is ‘wofai’, while the Efiks call it ‘emem’ in
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
102
Nigeria, in Swedeen: Fred, Duch: Vrede, German: Frieden and is even depicted in the
names many individuals give to their children after birth. And in Swahili: Amani,
[aa-mah-nee], salami, suluhu, Yorub: Alafia, alaafia, Hausa: zaman lafiya all meaning,
harmony, tranquility, peace, and serenity.
Einstein ([25], p. 371) noted that peace is not the absence of war, but the presence
of justice, law, order, and even government. Noted that true peace is not the absence
of tension, it is the presence of justice. Discussing the concept Howard (p. 225), noted
that peace is highly emotive and not just the absence of war but the maintenance of an
orderly and just society. A just society connotes a society devoid of double standards,
and criminality but one that observes laws, order, rules and regulations, trust, truth,
commitment to ethical values and codes, respect, and a sense of responsibility. It is
these values that promote a positive investment climate and rapid development in any
nation.
According to Mail [26], to define the term ‘peace’ is to consider the following six
meanings of peace:
i. Peace as the absence of war [tensions and direct violence]
ii. peace as justice and development [absence of structural violence]
iii. peace as Gaia [Balance as well as harmony in the ecosystem and ecosphere]
i v. peace as tolerance and respect [between people and communities]
v. peace as tranquility or inner peace [spiritual peace]
vi. Peace as wholeness, making whole [being complete]
According to [19], African rituals, are embodied in cultural and religious heritage
which are usually faced with criticisms of being either superstitious, fetish, mundane,
or simply irrational, a kind of cultural shock. Rituals are enduring and pervasive as far
as African existential reality is concerned and are believed to be illogical, unreason-
able, and non-rational by others outside the African continent. Rituals strengthen and
renew social relationships and social values, and belief in spiritual powers is rekindled
by the general satisfaction it provides to members and the community [20]. According
to [20], no matter how our mental and physical capacities and endowment in society,
there still exist so many uncontrollable factors that are necessary to utilize and demon-
strate whatever chance there may be of enlisting the supernatural aid, to our social and
economic life. Onwuejeogwu ([27], p. 251) noted that Africans like the Igbos in Nigeria
believe in their ‘Obi or Ikenga’ for fertility, business, and investment climate because it
is said to have an overbearing guide to determine success or failure in business [28, 29].
Among most African countries; Uganda, Nigeria, Niger, Ghana, Morrocco, Tanzania,
and Sudan rituals are meant to ward off evil intentions among members and com-
munity and for ‘good luck’ or some sort of gift. In the “Gods are not to Blame” by Ola
Rotimi—Playwriter in 1971, the gods through the ‘Ifa Oracle’ diviner foretold the birth
of Odewale, who was lured into a false of security, only, to somehow get caught up in
a consanguineous trial of events by the gods of the land. Odewale was destined to kill
the father and marry his mother, all efforts to stop this abominable act failed. This is
a classic example of what rituals can reveal and ensure measures are taken to ward off
calamities and promote sanity in society. Some rituals define your role and functions
103
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and some rituals are status ascendency of individuals in the society. This ascendency
and recognition by the public reinforces the beliefs and traditions of society and the
need to transmit this cultural aspect from generation to generation. Any attempt to
stop certain ritual performances can cause social disorganization, revolt, disorienta-
tion, and disruption which may consume the individual members and society.
Rituals are an element of a subculture and can be used to promote commitment
and truth and a sense of duty because they can be used as a veritable avenue for the
screening of leaders, age-grade members, business partners and eliminate members
who may be agents of criminal behavior in the community [12]. For example, in
Massey in Kenya, Uganda, and most parts of Africa, security chiefs were asked
mandatorily to swear with the serpent to be good behavior and shun corruption, this
helped to catalyze their commitment to good governance.
Peace is relatively a function of how conflict situation is handled (Hamakim
in Bassey and Ogbonnaya ([21], p. 1023). And Conflict according to Coser, is the
struggle over values and claims of scarce resources [resource redistribution, political
power, raw material, etc.], in which each opponent’s objective and goal is to either,
neutralize, injure, or eliminate their rivals. Conflict arises from deep-rooted socio-
economic struggles, contradictions, wrong perceptions, distortions, frustrations, and
unattainable goals. Conflict in other words is a clash, disagreement between two or
more opposing individuals, and groups which sometime becomes violent and may
disrupt harmonious activities and peace in the society. Where, it does happen, con-
flict management becomes inevitable. Therefore, conflict management is essentially,
a creative element of change in human relationships and a means of change, in which
our social values of welfare, security, justice, and opportunities for personal and
group development can be achieved. This can be achieved with minimal compromises
and understanding among the opposing individuals and groups in conflict. Therefore,
according to, Bassey and Ogbonnaya [21] managing conflict requires tested and
trusted techniques of peace path, conflict prevention and management, solutions
through negotiation; probably through ritual oaths which are common among African
to help maintain status quo.
4. What then is development and national development
Development in all human societies is a many-sided process, involving an amalgam
of interrelated and interlaced factors. At the individual level development connotes
increased skills and capacity, responsibility, creativity, greater freedom, self-disci-
pline, and material well-being. Thus, given the state one finds himself in, develop-
ment is tied to the state and society as a whole, the superstructures, body of beliefs,
motivation, technology, innovation, and socio-political institutions promoting world
views. Development refers to a general improvement in people’s political, social, eco-
nomic, and cultural aspects of life towards better living standards [30]. Development
as a process implies increasing capacity, space, and potential to regulate both internal
and external relationships. Development goes beyond mere increase or improvement
in per-capita income or economic growth but includes general improvement in the
living standards and welfare of people and society. This includes health, environment,
economic, social, spiritual, and cultural features. Development is a multifaceted and
multidimensional process that not only includes economic growth but also involves
elimination and reduction of poverty, unemployment, inequality, environmental
sustainability, and structural change measures of redistribution, equity, political
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
104
transformation, and improvement of health., environment as well improving the
living conditions of the people and society [31]. This further amplifies Rodney’s view
that development means the increase in the ability to protect, watch and guard the
independence, freedom of individuals, social groups and others irrespective of their
will and the society involved. However, the term development is most often used in
an exclusive and restrictive economic sense; it is the alignment and justification of the
type of economy which in itself is index of other social features [30]. These features
include its values, culture, rituals, skills, freedom, and responsibility. Development
is transformational and entails all spheres of political, social, economic religious, and
cultural life which contribute to the wealth of the nation.
National development refers to the sustainable growth and development of a nation
into a more appreciable and desirable one. It entails the overall development of the
collective life of the people and society in terms of the social, cultural, political, envi-
ronmental, economic as well as religious advancement of a nation [31]. Development
involves increased awareness and greater freedom, equity, health, creativity, and skills.
Self-discipline, responsibility, and material and mental well-being of people and soci-
ety. National development agenda must ensure even distribution of materials and
resources and must be people-oriented and its success must be evaluated in terms of
the impact in improving the living conditions of people and society generally. National
development according to Obasenjo and Akim [32], is the enhancement of people’s
capacity over a considerable period in different areas and spheres of life, inducing
positive change through planning, predicting, understanding, and monitoring.
5. Rituals: a Panacea for national development in Africa
Rituals are symbols that unite people into a moral community that follows strict
codes [33, 34]. Nation-building is achieved through building budges across all facets
of interlaced systems and getting everybody involved in society [35]. It emphasizes
participatory mechanisms to promote inclusiveness and ownership and taking into
consideration their cultural and political backgrounds. According to Henslin [36]
rituals are embedded in religion as a matter of faith and how it is applied and relates
to stratification systems and fosters social solidarity by uniting all into a community
that shares values and perspectives. There is a general misconception that rituals like
religion and development do not mix, and a strong belief that rituals hurt develop-
ment. This misrepresentation and misconception to a large extent has affected the
psychic of African traditional practices as having negative effects and does not aid
African national development. Development cannot occur in a non-peaceful environ-
ment therefore, rituals through ethical principles eliminate criminality abhor laziness,
and encourage unity and communal concern for the well-being of members of the
society. It includes traditional ethical principles, sanctions, and eschatological beliefs
that regulate the behavior, conduct, and actions of individuals, groups, and commu-
nities in African society [37]. According to Etim and Olupona [2] ethical principles,
sanctions punishment, and eschatological concepts were the factors that kept individ-
uals and government in check and the true conscience and African national develop-
ment. Africa continent reveals very full workings of the law of uneven development
of societies from Ethiopia, Niger, Togo, Congo, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana,
Egypt, Cameroun, Sarrie Leone, South Africa, Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Nigeria, etc.
with striking geographical features which makes it different from Europe, America,
Asia, Japan and Britain, USA, Japan, Malaysia, China, etc.
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In Africa, religious beliefs, cultural patterns, and rituals are associated with the
mobilization and discipline of members and the promotion of social justice and
equity. Kinship forms, family, and communalism form patterns of social relations
with defined positions, roles, and in all spheres of activities. These ties are succinctly
tied to ritual practices that provide critical evaluation, functions of social control,
cohesion, providing meaning and purpose [33]. The idea of rituals is to promote
loyalty, moral obligation, obedience, and ethical code, which are central to human-
ness, ‘Jen’ according to Confucianism, and ‘Ubuntu’ in Africa. Some ritual practices
like Dokpwe of Dahomey had a wider application of the religious belief that work
barn increases efficiency, the Kikuyu of Kenya, Hausa/Madinga of Northern Nigeria
and Mali, the Nupe, the tailoring gild of Timbuktu-Mali, and the bronze industry
in Benin, in Egypt the Manicuka and the Ayyubids dynasty achieved a great deal and
were structured in age grades to boost traditional economy and development [5].
Africa is inextricably tied to their communal ideology and philosophy ‘Ubuntu’.
Ubuntu is a Nguni Bantu term meaning “humanity and inclusiveness “ [8, 11, 19,
38–41]. It is sometimes translated as “I am because we are” or “I am because you are” or
“humanity towards others”. In Zulu, umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu] [40, 42]. In Xhosa,
the latter term is used, but most often the term ‘Ubuntu’ in a more philosophical sense
mean “the belief in a universal bond of love, sharing that connects all humanity and
expresses the spirit of mutuality, oneness and collectiveness”. Ubuntu ideology is a
collection of shared values and practices that Africans hold dearly with a sense of
passion, thus as making people authentic human beings whose feelings are coopera-
tiveness [39]. Howbeit, within the African continent, these values and practices vary
across different ethnic groups, though, they all point to one thing—that an authentic
individual human being is part of a larger and more significant relational, religious,
communal, societal, environmental, and spiritual world [38, 39]. This presupposes
that, man does not exist in isolation. The ritual observance is a sense of commitment,
loyalty, discipline, decorum, responsibility, values of honesty and integrity, transpar-
ency, obedience, civility tec that helps to restore confidence and hope in the society,
as well as the elimination of bad values; like corruption, criminality, greed double
standards, etc (Figure ).
Figure 4.
Akpatuma cultural dance ritual of Obudu. It presents a sense of unity and celebration of important ceremonies. It
was performed during the 2022 Calabar festival carnival. UdeObeten, 2023.
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
. Traditional medicine rituals and national development in Africa
In Africa, traditional medicine components are largely dominated by ritual
practices; divination, soothsaying, incantations, and libations to appease the gods
and to investigate the cause of illness leading to healing. Through these ritual perfor-
mances, Africans see the more suitable way of treatment by specialists and recipients
as the case may be. From Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Africa, Uganda, and Zambia to
Cameroon, Nigeria, and Ghana, in fact in all of Africa, indigenous African traditional
medicine [ATM], and curative systems are extremely utilized by large sections of
the populations that believe in the efficacy of traditional medicine rituals [7]. The
high costs of the contemporary health care system and the technologies that are
necessary to drive the system make it difficult for a greater percentage of Africans to
access health care services thus the reliance on the potency of traditional medicine. In
recent times, there have been calls across the globe to integrate traditional medicine
into modern medicine. The African traditional healer/diviner is believed by a lot
of African professionals, to have greater success in the mitigation of psychologi-
cal [spiritual] problems [7]. He adds that “the traditional healer/diviner has wider
function than just healing because it incorporates ritual practices to relate with the
supernatural (Figure ).
The traditional practitioners act as consultants on community issues, groups,
family, and other relationships, as priests, and as one captivating a great interest
Figure 5.
Ritual performance for fertility, divination for illness, success, misfortune, and any other cause of problem across
the African continent with the aid of cowries, shells, and beads, among the people of Nigeria, Ghana, Sudan,
Cameroun, Guinea, Kenya, etc. picture taken 2023. UdeObeten, 2023.
107
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in ecological issues. This practice is common among the Igbo and Yoruba people of
Nigeria. The Igbo ‘Ezeomou’ or the Yuroba ‘Ifa Priest’ is essentially the mouthpiece of
the gods of the land that must be consulted in all matters affecting the land; fertility,
illness, farming, war, In Africa’s healthcare sector, the contribution of traditional, nat-
ural-based products and activities to conventional medicines cannot be overlooked,
because African Traditional Medicine (ATM) has over time been the foundation
of primary healthcare delivery across Africa. Tamuno Okujagu, Director General,
Nigerian Natural Medicine Development Agency (NNMDA) in a Business Day
interview, once noted that “the role of traditional medicine in healthcare delivery in
the developing countries is known and given”. And given the healthcare delivery and
economic potential of traditional medicine, countries like Germany, China, India,
and South Korea, had opened up and developed their traditional health systems,
supported agencies and universities on researches into traditional medicine practice
and its application to solve medical illnesses. Also, to expand on the traditional
medical model and to provide affordable and accessible healthcare delivery system
in Africa, countries like South Africa, Ghana, Egypt, and Morocco had keyed into
the traditional medical model and initiatives as well maintained specific institutional
mandates to fast-track the coordination of research and development, promotion,
and documentation of traditional medicine [7]. In recognition of the growing need
to meet the health care services of the populations of the World, the World Health
Organization [WHO], acknowledges the huge potential of traditional natural medi-
cine and has continued to influence support and encourage its promotion, documen-
tation, research, and development through several initiatives. This initiative is to
complement the biopsychosocial treatment model and ensure availability of medical
care, prevention and promotion in all populations of the world.
7. African indigenous rituals and national value system
African traditional culture and religion are embedded with ritual practices
that give force and application to the meaning and usage. Values are standards or
principles a society holds collectively and are imbibed by members. Nwaubani [43]
noted that values are drawn from cultural beliefs, norms taboos, and dispositions
that regulate their actions. There is a connection between values and ritual activities
as they tend to reinforce each other, and can be used to resolve the injustice with-
out creating tensions [44]. The decline in values is responsible for the many moral
decadence among youth in Africa. Therefore, values are the cultural and social norm
and are usually cherished behavioral practices, beliefs, and codes that govern human
interaction.
Rituals, values, and national development: the divergence of rituals and values
in African ontology is difficult to ascertain as both are aspects of African Traditional
Religion [ATR] which deals with the ideas that defend or sustain the life of the people
in their relationship with one another and the world are inextricable. Values and mor-
als cover issues like justice, right and wrong, dignity, respect for people and prosper-
ity, truth, love, good and evil, the keeping of promises and agreements, beauty, crime
and punishment, praise and blame, etc. [5, 17, 32]. These values and morals determine
the religious, cultural, political, economic, and social behavior of a people and their
stability as well as their development. From the foregoing, Mbon [45] observed that,
the development of any nation to a very great extent depends on the moral and intel-
lectual development or otherwise of its people. Supporting this assertion, Anyanwu
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
and Oyema [8] succinctly observed that, we are not quite aware that any society
cannot afford to exist in the absence of morality, trust, justice, liberty, truth, good-
ness, and faithfulness. Therefore, deducting from the above assertions it follows that
for any nation to experience development justice, trust, love, peace, and harmony
are important and her citizens must be imbued with all the good life and qualities
provided by religion (in this case African Traditional Religion) through its moral
education and philosophy. Again, African Traditional Religion [ATR], teaches its
practitioners and adherents to eschew evil, bribery, corruption, ethnicity, tribalism,
and nepotism since most of these attributes are conflict energizers. These values are
the bedrock for cohesion and national development, as no nation can develop maxi-
mally where conflict strives and where the populations are confronted with social
problems and illnesses (Figure ).
. Indigenous rituals, and cultural tourism and African development
Africa is the continent of drums and percussion. A compendium of ritual prac-
tices, and spiritual and cultural life that cannot be separated from oneself. African
indigenous rituals are drivers of traditional religion and heritage. For example, among
the Tiv, in Nigeria, and the Zulu of South Africa neither the culture nor the social and
political system of the people could be understood without reference to their religion
and culture. African Traditional Religion is embedded in African culture and ritual
life and vice versa. This is explainable in light of the pervasive influence of religion
in the African worldview. African tourism is a product of its ritual activities. This
is evident in the Cross River State, Nigeria Carnival is considered the biggest street
Figure 6.
The traditional Prime Minister -Okpebri of Ekoli performing the ritual for peace and declaration of the new yam
festival 2023.
Indigenous Rituals, Panacea for Peace Building, Conflict Management and National…
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party in Africa celebrated annually in December. During the annual carnival event, all
forms of African ritual performances are displayed which attract a significant num-
ber of spectators. This tourism outfit promotes and boosts the economic and social
fortunes of the state. Everything finds explanation, expression, and validation in
African religion and indigenous ritual activities. Culture is a multiplier and pull factor
that influences visitors’ initial decision to travel to different destinations of the world
(Figure ).
The importance of culture in promoting development globally, and the attractions
of visitors make culture to be perceived as being icon of important global concern [1,
46]. The global cross-cultural importance of culture in promoting national develop-
ment has led to the identification of world heritage sites which attracts millions of
tourists yearly. Also, at the national and local level, culture is seen as playing a vital
local function in establishing and reinforcing people’s unique identities and sense
of belonging within territorial regions. Culture has made tourism to received great
global attention, as a means of entertainment and holiday relaxation. Catching
panoramic glimpse of the wonders of nature and other people’s cultures promote
trade relations and means of boosting the national economy. A typical example, is the
Calabar annual Carnival that parade different cultures and ritual performance from
different parts of the world like, Cuba, Ecuador, Brazil, South Africa, Cameroon,
Mali, Guinea, Libya, Togo, Ghana, America, Uganda, Tanzania, Sudan etc.
African Traditional Religion [ATR], and cultural practices are embodiment of
cultural tourism and to a large extent has contributed generally to tourism drive and
national development especially among the nations of the continent [47]. Cultural
tourism according to [46], is “the aspect of human culture that attracts others from
different socio-cultural backgrounds to a particular region to witness and share in its
glamour”. This often generate social and economic gains to the people and promote
cross-cultural relationship and interactions. Cultural tourism therefore, relates to well
preserved indigenous and traditional arts, cultural and dramatic displays, ritual exhi-
bitions, handicraft, folklore and other artistic expressions of the culture of people
and fashion [48]. It is these rich cultural diversities and heritage that attracts tourists
and visitors to these countries and cultures that are alien to them. These cultures are
Figure 7.
The Prestigious Ekpe Masquerade used for peace and unity, law enforcement, and social order in Efik kigdom and
Ibibio in Nigeria and Cameroon 2023.
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
110
seen as resources holding potentials for the economy growth, education, and recre-
ation with multiplying effect on national development.
Cultural tourism implies showcasing and displaying cultural identities in terms
of education, music, local customs, local arts and crafts, traditional dancers, food,
and drinks. These implicitly promote socioeconomic growth development of nations
[49, 50]. Goeldner et al. therefore, noted that, African traditional culture is tourism
itself, especially by the reason that, its preservation, promotion, and presentation are
designed to arouse tourist’s interest and value for money. For example, the activities
of the new yam, fishing festivals such as Leboku New Yam in Ugep, Cross River State,
and the Agungun fishing festival in Nigeria and Darbar festival among the Hausa/
Fulani in the Sahel region attract several visitors and in exchange boost local economy
[51]. It is important to point out that, most of these festivals honor the earth and
river goddesses and the ancestral spirits of the land. All these indigenous rituals and
cultural practices promote and enhance tourism, and national development at large.
African traditional culture has the capacity to make significant impact on the
economy and environment of any nation when appropriately harnessed, and can
therefore, be seen as a catalyst for national cohesion and development. The impor-
tance of culture cannot be over emphasized, and one obvious benefit of the tourism
culture industry is its suitability to create employment opportunities for the youth
and reduce incidences of criminality in the society. However, a conducive, peaceful
conflict-free atmosphere, is needed for culture and tourism strive as well as to achieve
the goals of economic enhancement and contribute to national development. This
places the burden and why national re-orientation is necessary as it imbues every
Africa citizen with the right moral attitude to receive and interact with visitors to our
countries with the view of maximizing relationship and trade relations.
9. Conclusion
Rituals are symbols that unite people into a moral community and are essential
to ginger and promote the national development of Africa. They invoke a sense of
cultural identity and are catalysts for cultural tourism, indigenous African traditional
medicine, and value orientation. Africans have developed different mechanisms to
address conflicts, security challenges, and development. Peace is breeding ground for
extensive investment, cross-cultural and trade relations among nations of the world.
The values of Truth, trust, communalism, sense of identity, democratic ideals, and
good governance have significantly influenced the use of rituals in almost all facets
of African life because every individual was conscious of the implication of failing
to keep to terms with the rituals, and taboos. African Traditional Religion which is
embedded in rituals can fast-track national development in Africa if it is introduced
into their legal systems and criminal codes. African traditional rituals and indig-
enous rituals can create new jobs and provide employment. Rituals are the way of
Africanlife.
Indigenous Rituals, Panacea for Peace Building, Conflict Management and National…
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1003612
111
Author details
Ude BasseyObeten
Department of Social Work, University of Calabar, Nigeria
*Address all correspondence to: udeobeten@yahoo.com; udeobeten@unical.edu.ng
© 2024 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of
the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0),
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original work is properly cited.
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
112
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Chapter 8
The Role of African Indigenous
Knowledge Systems in Achieving
Restorative Justice among the
Vhavenda of South Africa
JoshuaMawere and Ndwamato WalterTshamano
Abstract
This chapter focuses on exploring the impact of colonization on South Africa,
with a specific focus on the Vhavenda community. The chapter aims to examine the
role of African Indigenous Knowledge Systems in achieving restorative justice. The
impact of colonization on the Vhavenda community is a complex issue that has had
various impacts on their socioeconomic, cultural, and political development. The
chapter uses a literature review research method, which involves a comprehensive
examination of existing literature and scholarly works related to the research topic.
The findings of this research suggest that the exploitation of the Vhavenda com-
munity has had severe adverse effects that continue to affect their lives to this day.
The African Indigenous Knowledge Systems offer a unique approach to restorative
justice by promoting healing and reconciliation through community involvement,
storytelling, and cultural practices. The chapter concludes that the implementation
of African Indigenous Knowledge Systems is crucial to achieving restorative justice in
the Vhavenda community and throughout South Africa.
Keywords: African indigenous knowledge systems, restorative justice, colonialism,
apartheid, Vhavenda community, indigenous peoples, South Africa
1. Introduction
South Africa’s pursuit of developing, promoting, and protecting African
Indigenous Knowledge Systems (AIKSs) is a timely and crucial initiative, especially
given the winds of change currently blowing through the country [1]. On one hand,
major transformation and democratization processes are underway, as evidenced by
macro-level policies such as the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP),
the Policy of Growth, Equity, and Reconstruction (GEAR), the National System
of Innovation, and the African Renaissance [2]. The latter, in particular, seeks to
combine identity reconstruction and innovation, human rights, sustainable develop-
ment, and democratization in South Africa and across the African continent. The
African Renaissance is a project that aims to deepen the understanding of Africa, its
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
116
languages, and its methods of development [3]. Ndlovu-Gatsheni further argues that
“it involves rewriting major tenets of history, both past and contemporary” [3]. AIKSs
present significant challenges for the reconstruction and development of strategies
in South Africa. Moreover, several global imperatives underpin the need for renewed
attention to AIKSs.
The promotion and protection of AIKSs in South Africa is a crucial step toward
achieving equity, empowerment, and development. At present, the world is at a
crossroads in search of new, human-centered visions of development in health,
biodiversity conservation, human rights, and poverty alleviation. All agencies of the
United Nations are seeking to promote paradigms of sustainable human development
that build on knowledge resources that exist in communities [4]. As a continent,
Africa is seeking its own renaissance and striving to establish the terms of its devel-
opment. Despite the affluence that globalization has brought to a small minority,
the world is engraved in subjection, suffering, and dispossession, and contempt for
human dignity and the sanctity of life are at the center of human existence. Emotional
dislocation, moral sickness, and individual helplessness remain ubiquitous features.
Moreover, for a great majority of the population of Africa, the loss of cultural refer-
ence points has culminated in the fundamental breakdown of African societies, with
dire consequences for the social and human development project as a whole [4].
Extrapolating from the above, the chapter examines the impact of colonialism on
the Vhavenda people of South Africa and the role that AIKSs can play in restoring and
preserving their cultural heritage.
2. Background of the study
The effects of colonialism on African societies have been profound, and the
Vhavenda people of South Africa are no exception. With a rich and unique history
that spans centuries before colonialism, the introduction of colonial rule in the late
1800s brought about significant changes that altered the cultural, social, and eco-
nomic fabric of the Vhavenda community [5]. As one of the indigenous groups of
South Africa, the Vhavenda people reside in the northernmost part of the Limpopo
Province and have a complex social structure that includes their own language, cus-
toms, and traditions [6]. However, the arrival of Europeans in the region in the late
nineteenth century brought about significant changes for the Vhavenda people. The
dominant colonial powers of the time, the British, sought to establish a governance
structure that mirrored their own system of government [5]. The following issues,
which will be discussed in detail later in this chapter, highlight a significant disruption
that resulted in poverty and inequality for the Vhavenda people.
The loss of ancestral lands was one of the most significant impacts of colonial-
ism on the Vhavenda people [7]. European colonizers forcefully dispossessed them
of their land and herded them into reserves known as Bantustans [7]. This severely
impacted their way of life as the Vhavenda people were largely an agrarian society,
relying heavily on their land for subsistence. The forced move meant that they could
no longer practice their traditional agricultural practices, which resulted in food
insecurity and poverty. Another significant impact of colonialism on the Vhavenda
people was the introduction of Christianity and Western education [8]. European
missionaries introduced Christianity and built churches in the area, which signifi-
cantly impacted the Vhavenda people’s religious beliefs. Western education was also
introduced, and many Vhavenda children were forcibly taken from their families
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and enrolled in boarding schools where they were taught European values and
culture [9]. This process of Westernization significantly undermined Vhavenda’s
culture and traditions.
The impact of colonialism on the Vhavenda people was far-reaching and devastat-
ing. One of the most significant impacts was the introduction of cash economies,
which disrupted the traditional exchange system known as the vhushavhi [10]. This
disruption led to poverty and inequality, as the Vhavenda people were forced to work
in European-owned mines and farms for meager wages. Despite these challenges,
there is hope for the restoration and preservation of the Vhavenda people’s cultural
heritage through AIKSs. AIKSs refers to the unique knowledge, skills, and practices
of a particular Indigenous community, transmitted through cultural practices and
traditions [11]. By providing a link to ancestral knowledge and wisdom, AIKS offers
a platform for restoring and preserving the cultural heritage of the Vhavenda people.
Against this background, the study aims to create new spaces for dialog and collabo-
ration, building a more inclusive and equitable scientific community that benefits all.
This will be achieved through examining the role of AIKSs in achieving restorative
justice.
3. Theoretical framework
A theoretical framework is a crucial component in research studies as it provides
a conceptual structure for understanding and analyzing the phenomena under
investigation [12]. Varpo further contends that “it serves as a guide for researchers to
develop hypotheses, design research methodologies, and interpret findings” [12]. In
essence, a theoretical framework is a collection of interconnected concepts, theories,
and models that form the foundation of a study. It helps researchers to organize their
thoughts and ideas, ensuring that their research is grounded in existing knowledge
and relevant theories. By utilizing a theoretical framework, researchers can establish
a logical and coherent structure for their study, enhancing its credibility and validity.
This chapter utilizes the concept of the African Renaissance in the study.
3.1 African renaissance theory
The African Renaissance and AIKSs are two interconnected concepts that hold
significant importance in understanding and appreciating Africa’s rich cultural
heritage. This section aims to explore the profound impact of these systems on Africa’s
development while highlighting their relevance in a global context. By delving into
the depths of African knowledge systems, one can gain a profound comprehension
of the continent’s distinctive contributions to the world. This endeavor allows for
a comprehensive understanding of the invaluable insights and wisdom that Africa
has bestowed upon humanity. The African Renaissance represents a transformative
movement that seeks to revive and celebrate Africa’s cultural, social, and economic
potential [13]. It is a call for Africans to reclaim their identity, challenge negative
stereotypes, and foster a sense of pride in their heritage.
This movement recognizes the need for Africa to take charge of its destiny,
embracing its diverse cultures, languages, and traditions as sources of strength and
resilience. AIKSs as explained earlier refer to the accumulated knowledge, prac-
tices, and beliefs that have been passed down through generations within African
communities [14]. These systems encompass a wide range of disciplines, including
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
118
agriculture, medicine, spirituality, and governance [14]. AIKSs are deeply rooted
in African culture and are often based on a holistic understanding of the intercon-
nectedness between humans, nature, and the spiritual realm [14]. The African
Renaissance draws heavily upon AIKSs as a foundation for its vision of a revitalized
Africa. By recognizing and valuing the wisdom embedded within AIKSs, the African
Renaissance seeks to integrate traditional knowledge with modern advancements,
fostering sustainable development and empowering local communities.
This integration allows for the preservation and utilization of Africa’s rich cul-
tural heritage, while also embracing the opportunities presented by globalization.
In essence, the African Renaissance and AIKSs are intertwined in their pursuit of
Africa’s development and recognition on a global scale. As a result of recognizing the
importance of these systems, one can truly grasp the profound impact Africa has had
on the world and strive toward a future that respects its rich cultural heritage while
embracing progress. Viewing Africa’s path toward sustainable development through
this perspective becomes attainable. The interplay between the African Renaissance
and AIKSs presents a remarkable opportunity for Africa to exhibit its intellectual and
cultural abundance on the global stage. The significance of the African Renaissance
and IKS transcends the boundaries of the African continent. In an era of growing
interconnectivity, safeguarding and promoting diverse knowledge systems becomes
imperative in fostering global comprehension and cooperation, thereby preserving
Africa’s invaluable cultural heritage.
4. Research methodology
Research methodology is a fundamental component of any study, as it establishes
a systematic framework for conducting research and obtaining reliable results [15].
It encompasses the overall approach, techniques, and tools employed to gather and
analyze data, ensuring the validity and accuracy of the findings. A well-designed
research methodology is essential for achieving the objectives of a study, enabling
researchers to identify the most appropriate methods for data collection, such as
surveys, interviews, experiments, or observations [16]. Moreover, research methodol-
ogy plays a vital role in ensuring the reliability and validity of the data collected.
As a result of employing rigorous data collection techniques and utilizing appro-
priate analysis methods, researchers can minimize bias and enhance the credibility
of their findings [15]. This, in turn, elevates the overall quality and trustworthiness
of the research. Additionally, research methodology aids in the interpretation and
presentation of research findings [16]. Through employing suitable data analysis tech-
niques, researchers can identify patterns, trends, and relationships within the data,
enabling them to draw meaningful conclusions and make informed recommenda-
tions. Consequently, the research contributes to the existing body of knowledge and
provides valuable insights for decision-making.
This study uses the literature review research methodology to collect data. This
approach entails a thorough examination of existing literature and scholarly works
pertaining to the research topic [16]. By critically analyzing and synthesizing the
findings from multiple sources, researchers can develop a comprehensive understand-
ing of the subject matter and identify any gaps in the existing knowledge [15]. This
methodology facilitates a meticulous exploration of the research topic and establishes
a strong foundation for further investigation [16]. Ultimately, a well-executed
research methodology is imperative for the successful conduct of this study. It not
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only ensures the reliability and validity of the data but also enables researchers to
draw meaningful conclusions and contribute to the existing body of knowledge [15].
By means of employing appropriate techniques and tools, researchers can enhance
the overall quality and trustworthiness of their research, providing valuable insights
for decision-makers in various fields.
5. Vhavenda indigenous knowledge systems
South African AIKSs encompass a diverse and invaluable cultural and intellectual
heritage that has been passed down through generations [17]. These systems are
deeply rooted in the beliefs, practices, and wisdom of the indigenous people, form-
ing a rich tapestry of knowledge [17]. The purpose of this section is to explore the
intricacies and significance of IKS, providing valuable insights into its intellectual
foundations, spiritual dimensions, and socioeconomic implications. To illustrate these
concepts, the authors’ focus will be on the Vhavenda people, an indigenous group
residing in the northern regions of South Africa [18]. A comprehensive understand-
ing of AIKS is essential for examining the profound impacts of colonialism and apart-
heid, as well as for informing recommendations toward achieving restorative justice.
As a result of delving into the depths of AIKS, the study can unravel the complexities
of South Africa’s history and pave the way for a more inclusive and equitable future.
At the heart of Vhavenda AIKSs lies a robust intellectual tradition rooted in
observation, experience, and critical thinking [18]. The Vhavenda people have culti-
vated a comprehensive understanding of their natural environment, enabling them
to adapt and flourish in the diverse ecosystems they inhabit [18]. Their knowledge
spans various domains, including agriculture, astronomy, traditional medicine, and
animal behavior. This exemplifies how Vhavenda’s knowledge systems are founded on
empirical evidence and a profound appreciation for the intricate interplay between
humans and their surroundings. Spirituality plays a fundamental role in Vhavenda
AIKSs [19]. The Vhavenda people embraced a pervasive life force known as muthu,
which was believed to permeate all aspects of existence [19]. This spiritual worldview
was intricately woven into their daily lives, influencing their interactions with nature,
ancestors, and fellow humans. Rituals, ceremonies, and symbolic representations
formed integral components of this spiritual tradition, serving to maintain harmony,
honor ancestral spirits, and establish communication with the divine [18]. Vhavenda
AIKSs thus illuminated the profound connection between the physical and the meta-
physical, offering a holistic perspective on human existence [19].
The socioeconomic implications of Vhavenda AIKS systems were extensive
and profound. These systems granted the Vhavenda people a distinctive economic
advantage, as they possessed a profound understanding of sustainable agricultural
practices tailored to their specific environment [20]. They had honed techniques
such as terracing, crop rotation, and water management to perfection, enabling
them to maximize crop yield while minimizing the detrimental impact on the envi-
ronment [20]. By harnessing this invaluable traditional knowledge, the Vhavenda
people successfully cultivated resilient and productive agricultural systems, ensur-
ing food security for their communities and contributing significantly to regional
development. Moreover, Vhavenda AIKSs held significant social implications for the
community. Oral traditions, storytelling, and proverbs served as vital conduits for
the transmission of knowledge across generations [21]. Esteemed for their wisdom
and experience, the elders played a pivotal role in preserving and passing down this
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
120
invaluable knowledge [21]. This intergenerational transfer of knowledge fostered
a profound sense of collective identity and continuity, fortified social bonds, and
promoted cultural cohesion within Vhavenda society.
However, Vhavenda AIKSs faced significant challenges as a result of colonization
and apartheid. The process of colonization placed immense pressure on traditional
practices, jeopardizing the preservation of this invaluable ancestral knowledge.
Furthermore, the marginalization of indigenous knowledge within formal education
systems led to the undervaluation and erasure of Vhavenda knowledge. This not only
exacerbates existing inequalities but also hinders the rightful recognition of their
intellectual contributions. In the subsequent section, this study will delve into the
profound impact of colonial and apartheid influences on Vhavenda AIKSs.
6. The enduring impact of colonial and apartheid influences on Vhavenda
African indigenous knowledge systems in South Africa
The profound and lasting consequences of colonialism and apartheid on the
AIKSs of the Vhavenda people in South Africa cannot be overstated. This section
aims to shed light on the enduring legacy of these historical imprints, exploring
their implications for Vhavenda communities and their traditional knowledge. As a
result of delving into this topic, the authors hope to foster a deeper understanding
of the challenges faced by the Vhavenda people and the importance of preserving
their unique cultural heritage. To comprehend the present-day state of Vhavenda
AIKSs, it is crucial to acknowledge the historical context in which they have
evolved.
The Vhavenda people possess a profound and ancient cultural heritage that
predates the arrival of European colonizers [22]. Unfortunately, the imposition of
colonial rule and subsequent apartheid policies have greatly disrupted and marginal-
ized their traditional knowledge systems [22]. The colonization of South Africa by
European powers had a profound and lasting impact on the AIKSs of the Vhavenda
people. The imposition of Western educational systems, religious ideologies, land
dispossession, and changes in governance structures disrupted and eroded these
systems. Through closely examining these colonial effects, the authors intend to gain
a deeper understanding of the intricate interplay between colonialism and indigenous
knowledge, thereby illuminating the challenges faced by Vhavenda communities in
preserving and revitalizing their traditional knowledge.
6.1 Effects of colonization
One of the most significant colonial effects on Vhavenda AIKSs was the imposi-
tion of Western educational systems. As European powers sought to assert their
dominance, they introduced formal education systems that placed Western science
and knowledge at the forefront, often at the expense of indigenous knowledge [8].
This emphasis on Western education gradually eroded the transmission of indigenous
knowledge from one generation to the next, as the younger Vhavenda population
increasingly embraced Western perspectives and ways of thinking [8]. Consequently,
numerous traditional practices, rituals, and oral histories that form the bedrock of
Vhavenda indigenous knowledge have been marginalized or lost, posing a significant
challenge for future generations in accessing and appreciating their rich cultural
heritage.
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The impact of colonization on Vhavenda AIKSs extended beyond education.
Religious ideologies brought by European powers also played a role in disrupting and
reshaping traditional knowledge [9]. The imposition of Christianity, for instance,
introduced new belief systems and practices that often clashed with Vhavenda spiri-
tual traditions [9]. As a result, certain aspects of Vhavenda indigenous knowledge
were suppressed or modified to align with the dominant religious ideologies, further
eroding the authenticity and vitality of these knowledge systems. Moreover, the
imposition of Christianity as the prevailing religion by European colonizers brought
about profound transformations in the AIKSs of the Vhavenda people.
The introduction of new religious ideologies undermined the deeply ingrained
traditional spiritual practices that were an integral part of Vhavenda culture [9].
The sacred knowledge associated with ancestral reverence and traditional healing
practices faced increasing stigmatization and suppression at the hands of Christian
missionaries, who dismissed them as “savage” or “superstitious” [23]. Consequently,
the erosion and devaluation of traditional Vhavenda wisdom ensued, resulting in the
subordination of indigenous knowledge to the dominant Christian paradigm [23]. The
advent of European colonization had far-reaching consequences for the Vhavenda
community, particularly in terms of their belief systems and cultural practices.
The arrival of Christian colonizers marked a turning point in the history of
the Vhavenda people, as their traditional spiritual practices were systematically
undermined and marginalized [9]. The sacred knowledge that had been passed
down through generations, rooted in ancestral reverence and traditional healing,
was suddenly deemed inferior and backward by the Christian missionaries [23].
The Christian missionaries, driven by their own religious convictions, sought to
impose their beliefs and values upon the Vhavenda people. They viewed the AIKSs as
primitive and superstitious, dismissing them as mere relics of a bygone era [23]. This
attitude not only devalued the rich cultural heritage of the Vhavenda people but also
eroded their sense of identity and self-worth.
As a result, the traditional wisdom of the Vhavenda community was gradually
pushed to the fringes of society, overshadowed by the dominant Christian paradigm.
The once-respected ancestral reverence and traditional healing practices became
stigmatized, with the Vhavenda people themselves being made to feel ashamed of
their own heritage. The suppression of indigenous knowledge not only robbed the
Vhavenda community of their cultural identity but also perpetuated a power imbal-
ance, with the dominant Christian ideology exerting control over their lives.
The dispossession of Vhavenda lands through colonial rule had a profound effect
on the preservation of indigenous knowledge. Land is intrinsically linked to AIKSs
as it provides the context and resources necessary for the transmission and practice
of traditional knowledge. During the colonial era, vast tracts of Vhavenda land were
forcibly taken over by European settlers and the subsequent administration [7]. This
dispossession disrupted traditional modes of agricultural and ecological knowledge,
leading to a deterioration in the understanding and application of Vhavenda sustain-
able land practices [7]. The loss of land not only severed the physical connection to
indigenous knowledge but also disrupted social networks and cultural practices that
were closely tied to the land.
The colonial era also transformed the governance structures of Vhavenda com-
munities, favoring centralized European systems of administration over indigenous
systems [24]. Traditional leadership structures, which played a crucial role in pre-
serving and transmitting indigenous knowledge, were weakened and exploited by
the colonial powers [24]. The imposition of European-style governance disrupted
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
122
the autonomy and decision-making power of Vhavenda communities, eroding their
capacity to protect and promote their AIKSs. With colonialism came the imposition of
laws, institutions, and policies that marginalized Vhavenda cultural practices, further
jeopardizing the survival and thriving of their traditional knowledge.
The impact of colonialism on Vhavenda AIKSs has been far-reaching and
multifaceted. The imposition of Western educational systems, the introduction of
Christianity, the dispossession of lands, and changes in governance structures have
collectively eroded and disrupted traditional Vhavenda knowledge. However, it is cru-
cial to acknowledge the resilience of the Vhavenda people in their efforts to preserve
and revitalize their indigenous knowledge. Through recognizing and supporting local
initiatives that promote the revival of traditional practices, such as community-based
education and cultural revitalization projects, the research can contribute to the
restoration and empowerment of Vhavenda AIKSs.
6.2 Effects of apartheid
During the era of apartheid in South Africa, the Vhavenda people, an ethnic
minority in the country, endured profound repercussions on their AIKSs. The
apartheid policies enforced by the White supremacist government were specifically
crafted to marginalize and oppress non-White communities, resulting in catastrophic
outcomes for their cultural heritage and traditional practices [25]. This section aims
to delve into and scrutinize the far-reaching effects of apartheid on the IKS of the
Vhavenda people, thereby illuminating the intellectual and cultural implications of
this pivotal historical period.
One of the most significant effects of apartheid on the AIKSs of the Vhavenda
people was the disruption and erasure of their ancestral knowledge systems.
Apartheid policies systematically dismantled Vhavenda communities, forcibly
removing people from their traditional lands and disrupting their cultural practices
[26]. This disruption not only severed the vital connection between the people and
their ancestral lands but also severed the transmission of knowledge from one genera-
tion to the next [26]. The Vhavenda people’s spiritual beliefs, healing practices, and
agricultural techniques, which were deeply rooted in their ancestral heritage, faced a
severe threat of extinction due to the forced assimilation and displacement caused by
apartheid.
Furthermore, apartheid policies also marginalized the oral traditions and indig-
enous knowledge of the Vhavenda people by prioritizing Western forms of educa-
tion [8]. The imposition of a Westernized education system aimed at assimilating
non-White communities into the dominant White culture and eradicating their
unique identities [8]. This educational bias resulted in a devaluation of indigenous
knowledge, rendering it inferior to the Western knowledge systems. Consequently,
the intellectual and cultural contributions of the Vhavenda people were disre-
garded or suppressed, leading to a loss of confidence and pride in their traditional
knowledge. This loss further contributed to the erosion of the IKS of the Vhavenda
people.
In the wake of colonialism and apartheid, the Vhavenda AIKSs persistently
encounter a multitude of challenges. The forces of globalization, urbanization, and
modernization have further eroded the fabric of traditional practices, as younger
generations increasingly gravitate toward Western lifestyles. Moreover, the absence
of adequate support and recognition for Vhavenda indigenous knowledge exacerbates
the situation, hindering its preservation and transmission to future generations.
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7. Role of African indigenous knowledge systems in achieving restorative
justice
In order to gain a thorough understanding of AIKSs and their impact on the
Vhavenda indigenous people in South Africa, particularly in relation to colonialism
and apartheid, it is crucial to explore the potential role that AIKSs can play in achiev-
ing restorative justice. The consequences of colonization and apartheid have had pro-
found and wide-ranging effects, making restorative justice an imperative. Therefore,
this section aims to examine the role of AIKS in the pursuit of restorative justice.
AIKSs play a significant role in achieving restorative justice among the Vhavenda
Indigenous people of South Africa. Restorative justice is a process of addressing harm
caused by a criminal or wrongful act by bringing together the victims, offenders, and
communities affected by the wrongdoing. This process aims to restore relationships
and promote healing and reconciliation.
The Vhavenda Indigenous people have a rich cultural heritage, and their intricate
knowledge systems are deeply rooted in their traditional practices and beliefs. In
achieving restorative justice, the Vhavenda Indigenous knowledge systems are critical
in several ways:
7.1 Community involvement
Community involvement and participation are at the core of restorative justice
in Vhavenda. The AIKSs place great emphasis on communal living, highlighting the
critical role that the community plays in conflict resolution, as well as the promotion
of healing and reconciliation [26]. Enhancing community engagement is a fundamen-
tal aspect of the restorative justice approach in Vhavenda. By actively involving the
community, authorities tap into the collective wisdom and shared experiences that
foster a sense of unity and togetherness. This inclusive approach not only empow-
ers individuals within the community but also strengthens the bonds that hold the
society together. In Vhavenda, the community acts as a vital catalyst for resolving
conflicts. By drawing upon their deep-rooted values and traditions, community
members contribute to the restoration of harmony and balance. Through open dialog,
active listening, and respectful communication, the community collectively works
toward healing the wounds caused by conflicts and fostering reconciliation among
all parties involved. Moreover, community involvement extends beyond the resolu-
tion of conflicts. It serves as a platform for promoting understanding, empathy, and
compassion within the community. By way of actively engaging in restorative justice
practices, community members develop a deeper appreciation for the impact of their
actions on others, fostering a culture of accountability and responsibility. In conclu-
sion, community involvement lies at the heart of restorative justice in Vhavenda.
7.2 Healing practices
Healing practices in the AIKSs of the Vhavenda people promote restorative
justice by addressing the historical trauma and injustices caused by colonialism [27].
The Vhavenda people have suffered from systemic violence and exploitation under
colonial rule, resulting in the loss of their lands, language, cultural identity, and tradi-
tional healing practices. AIKS’s healing practices seek to restore balance and harmony
in the individual and the collective, using traditional remedies and rituals that address
the physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects of health [27]. These practices are
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
124
deeply rooted in the cultural heritage and beliefs of the Vhavenda people, emphasiz-
ing the interconnectedness of nature, ancestors, and community. Through the use of
AIKSs, the Vhavenda people are able to address the trauma and oppression caused by
colonialism and promote healing and reconciliation. Traditional healers play a crucial
role in restoring justice by providing a safe space for individuals to share their experi-
ences and receive guidance on how to reconnect with their cultural heritage and iden-
tity. Furthermore, the use of AIKSs promotes a sense of empowerment and resilience
among the Vhavenda people. As a result of honoring their cultural practices, they are
able to reclaim their voice and agency in the face of colonialism’s legacy of oppression.
This not only promotes healing and restoration but also strengthens the community’s
ability to resist future injustices and advocate for their rights.
7.3 Conflict resolution
Indigenous knowledge systems offer a rich tapestry of conflict resolution
mechanisms that effectively tackle conflicts and restore justice [28]. These mecha-
nisms encompass mediation, negotiation, and reconciliation. This is of paramount sig-
nificance, especially considering the lasting effects of colonization and apartheid. The
enduring remnants of these historical injustices, such as poverty, unemployment, and
economic marginalization, continuously fuel violence and discontent. Consequently,
the endorsement of indigenous knowledge systems for conflict resolution holds the
potential to assuage anger and champion the rectification of these historical wrongs.
For example, in the Vhavenda cultural system, marriage is about bringing families
together and creating relationships with extended family members and communities
[29]. Therefore, problems families encounter, are family and community problems.
As a result, elders are involved in the mediation, counseling, and reconciliation of
estranged partners. The revival of the system will undoubtedly contribute positively to
the reduction of the number of divorce cases among the Vhavenda.
7.4 Traditional courts
In traditional societies, courts have always played a crucial role in the pursuit of
justice, serving as a fundamental institution known as the African indigenous knowl-
edge system [29]. These courts uphold customary laws and cultural practices that are
deeply ingrained in the collective wisdom and values of the community. The AIKS
approach to justice recognizes that it goes beyond mere punishment of wrongdoers;
it seeks to restore harmony and balance within the community. By drawing upon
traditional knowledge and practices, these courts aim to address not only individual
transgressions but also their broader impact on the community and the environment,
thereby fostering healing and reconciliation.
The significance of traditional courts as an AIKS in restoring justice becomes par-
ticularly evident in the context of colonization. Colonial powers often imposed their
legal systems on indigenous communities, undermining their cultural beliefs and
practices. This imposition resulted in profound social, economic, and cultural disrup-
tions within indigenous societies. Consequently, traditional courts have emerged as
invaluable foundations upon which restoration and decolonization can take place. By
upholding indigenous customary laws and practices, these courts enable the reclama-
tion of indigenous identity and self-governance, which are crucial aspects in healing
the wounds inflicted by colonization. Moreover, because traditional courts adopt
a holistic approach to justice, they provide a means for communities to address the
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enduring impacts of colonization, including land dispossession and cultural assimila-
tion. Thus, traditional courts, as an AIKS, serve as indispensable tools for restoring
justice and reestablishing self-determination in post-colonial societies.
Overall, AIKSs play a crucial role in achieving restorative justice among the
Vhavenda Indigenous people of South Africa. These knowledge systems promote
community involvement, healing practices, conflict resolution mechanisms, and
traditional courts, which are all essential in promoting healing and reconciliation
within the community.
. Recommendations
Pursuant to obtaining a clear understanding of the role of AIKS in restorative
justice, the study proceeds to make recommendations on the recognition and preser-
vation of AIKS.
. Acknowledge and respect indigenous knowledge
One of the key strategies for addressing the enduring impacts of colonialism and
apartheid is to acknowledge and show respect for the knowledge and practices of
indigenous communities. This entails placing value on indigenous languages and
acknowledging traditional knowledge through avenues such as education, research,
and partnerships. This will foster a more inclusive and equitable society that honors
the rich cultural heritage of indigenous peoples.
. Encourage traditional healing practices
The chapter proposes the incorporation of traditional healing practices as a means
to address historical injustices and foster the acknowledgment of AIKSs (Indigenous
Knowledge Systems). Traditional healing practices have been transmitted across
generations within numerous indigenous communities. By promoting the utilization
of these practices, marginalized communities can reclaim their sense of identity
and resilience, ultimately facilitating the reconstruction of their social frameworks.
Figure below demonstrates the depths of Africa’s profound heritage and expertise in
traditional medicine.
Figure 1.
Vhavenda traditional medicine [30].
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
. Incorporate indigenous knowledge into the curriculum
Incorporating indigenous knowledge into the educational curriculum is a crucial
step in acknowledging the contributions of indigenous communities. This will not
only help students learn from different perspectives but also teach them to respect
and appreciate different cultures. This requires transforming the scientific ethos
and practices, while also establishing protocols to protect AIKSs. Institutions engag-
ing with AIKSs should strive to understand the relationship between science and
marginalized communities and how science has been used to suppress them. The
remnants of colonialism still exist in academia, where non-Western knowledge is
often dismissed as outdated. This dismissive attitude silences those whose knowledge
is labeled as obsolete and denies them a voice. It is important to create spaces for
constructive dialog between individuals and knowledge systems, including those
who have been suppressed. This can be achieved by fostering dialog and collaboration
between diverse knowledge systems. Figure illustrates the commendable initiative
undertaken by the University of Venda to integrate AIKS into its curriculum.
. Protect and preserve indigenous knowledge
The chapter recommends the protection and preservation of indigenous
knowledge. Indigenous communities have historically been marginalized and their
knowledge has often been co-opted or exploited without their consent. Therefore, it
is important to protect and preserve their knowledge by establishing legal protections
and providing resources for their conservation. Figure , displayed below, showcases
a photograph captured during a workshop organized by the Mupo Foundation. The
purpose of this workshop was to emphasize the significance of preserving and revital-
izing traditional culture, promoting seed diversity, and safeguarding Sacred Natural
Sites. It is imperative that similar endeavors are prioritized and effectively executed.
. Foster community-based development projects
In order to redress the enduring consequences of colonialism, it is imperative to
prioritize the implementation of community-based development projects. These
Figure 2.
The African Association for the Study of indigenous knowledge systems (AASIKS) conference [31].
127
The Role of African Indigenous Knowledge Systems in Achieving Restorative Justice…
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1002677
initiatives will serve as a powerful tool to empower marginalized communities,
enabling them to break free from the shackles of dependency and reclaim their
agency. By fostering self-reliance and mobilizing local resources, these projects will
create a solid foundation for sustainable growth and development. One of the key
advantages of community-based development projects is their ability to promote
participatory decision-making. Through involving community members in the
planning and execution of these initiatives, a sense of ownership and responsibility
is cultivated. This not only ensures that the projects align with the specific needs and
aspirations of the community but also challenges the historical legacy of top-down
development approaches that were imposed during the colonial era. As a result of
shifting the power dynamics and placing the community at the center, these projects
pave the way for a more inclusive and equitable development process.
8.6 Encourage dialog and collaboration
The study proposes that dialog and collaboration are crucial in the pursuit of
restorative justice. It emphasizes the significance of fostering relationships between
indigenous and nonindigenous communities to promote understanding and collabo-
ration. By actively involving indigenous communities in decision-making processes
and engaging in meaningful dialogs regarding issues that directly affect them, it
is possible to increase the likelihood of finding effective solutions that will have a
positive impact on their lives. Moreover, such efforts can help address the historical
injustices caused by colonialism and apartheid.
9. Conclusion
In conclusion, exploring the impact of colonialism on South Africa with a focus
on the Vhavenda community has shed light on the devastating effects of colonialism
on the African people. Dispossession of land, forced labor, cultural assimilation,
and segregation were some of the tools used by the colonialists to suppress Africans.
However, despite these challenges, African Indigenous Knowledge Systems (AIKS)
have played a significant role in sustaining the Vhavenda community’s culture and
promoting social harmony. AIKS is crucial in achieving restorative justice as it empha-
sizes collective responsibility, conflict resolution, and reconciliation. Therefore, there
is a need for policymakers and stakeholders to recognize and appreciate the value
Figure 3.
Picture shows the workshop on preserving Vhavenda AIKS [32].
Indigenous People – Traditional Practices and Modern Development
128
Author details
JoshuaMawere* and Ndwamato WalterTshamano
Tshwane University of Technology, Polokwane Campus Rector, Polokwane,
SouthAfrica
*Address all correspondence to: joshuamawerem@gmail.com
of AIKS in restoring justice and healing the wounds of colonialism. As South Africa
moves forward, it is essential to acknowledge the painful history of colonialism and
work toward a more inclusive and just society based on mutual respect and recogni-
tion of diverse cultures and knowledge systems.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
© 2023 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of
the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0),
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original work is properly cited.
The Role of African Indigenous Knowledge Systems in Achieving Restorative Justice…
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1002677
129
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Indigenous People
Traditional Practices and Modern Development
Edited by Sanjeet Kumar
and Manjula Bangalore Lakshminarayana
Edited by Sanjeet Kumar
and Manjula Bangalore Lakshminarayana
Indige nous People - Traditional Practices and Modern Development provides a
comprehensive overview of indigenous people, their traditional knowledge, and
contemporary advancement in a variety of areas. It also discusses the need to
preserve indigenous peoples’ traditional knowledge in the present context and how
to document and restore it. Additionally, it oers baseline data for developing plans
for sustainable development and good governance. is book is a useful resource for
academics, researchers, students, government agencies, non-governmental groups, and
policymakers.components of the Earth. Only indigenous and native pillars can save us
globally. erefore, at any cost, the world must start a new era with indigenous people
and their traditional knowledge. is book is a microscopic aspect of an anthropological
study of the evolution, culture, rituals, traditional practices, and modern development of
indigenous populations, globally speaking. It also enlightens the readers about the varied
means of their livelihood and their social organization, religion, art, and music through
three broad sections. e book will be quite useful for students, researchers, intellectuals,
and general readers throughout the world. I wish for a grand success that will be a source
of inspiration in many ways and a life-changing fount in the contemporary world.
Published in London, UK
© 2024 IntechOpen
© JLV-Photos / iStock
ISBN 978-0-85466-170-1
Indigenous People - Traditional Practices and Modern Development
ISBN 978-0-85466-171-8
