CHOLE-A WOMAN'S PLACE

30 minutes Colour 1982
Film maker: Peter Ramsden
Anthropologist: Patricia Caplan

The film is designed to show the relations between men and women which seem to conform to the Islamic ideal of segregation. Men and women keep apart and there is a division of labour along sex lines; men are concerned with religious and political affairs while women occupy themselves with children, cooking and the performance of customary, as opposed to Islamic, rites and ceremonies. However, the nature of property holding and the type of economy give women an independence that is at variance with the overall ideal. The formal definition of status is only one element to be considered in assessing the roles of the sexes.

The film opens with a demonstration of male and female roles: the Koran school segregates the sexes, while a modern classroom does not. Agriculture is a shared task but politics is a male affair and much of the day to day routine in the fields is women's work. Girls learn earlier than boys to undertake domestic chores, and women rely on help from their daughters, although they return that help by looking after their grandchildren.

Women can hold property and a villager talks of property and inheritance, emphasizing that it is held and inherited by and through both sexes. A further interview shows that women are able to support themselves, and even, as in this case, to support an elderly relative. Children may be fostered by kin, often a grandmother, and women are in charge of certain rituals. We see women and children going singing to the beach for customary celebration of the New Year. Notice that the boys remain at the edge of the beach; only the young girls actually go into the water. They are less vulnerable to the dangers of the sea, for sea spirits are concerned with women's problems and are controlled by women's cults. However, sea spirits dislike contact with sexuality, so only the sexually pure go into the sea. The ritual, which, so to speak, throws away the old year into the sea, ends with a shared meal, everyone sitting close together on the beach.

The degree to which kinship provides assistance to women is returned to in an interview with an elderly woman who is fostering grandchildren. Parents still have influence over their own adult children.

All Swahili rituals involve hospitality; a marriage is no exception. While the men confer on the verandah, female kin of the bride are pounding rice to prepare for the feasts. Their separation as two groups is as clear here as in everyday life. The dancing goes on all night. In the morning the bridegroom's party arrives, dressed formally and chanting. The women are once more cooking at the back of the house, and do not take part in the formal ceremony which establishes the marriage. Even the bride is elsewhere, with the women. Once the formal ceremony is over, the dancing begins. The groom and his kin must give presents of money to the bride's close kin to secure their consent to the wedding; the film shows the gifts to the female relatives. After the wedding, the girl is transferred to her husband's house. She is carried on the back of the woman who conducted her initiation ritual. Her kin carry her trousseau, which is thus displayed in the formal procession between the two houses. In this particular wedding the bridegroom is working in Dar-es-Salaam in mainland Tanzania so the last shot is of the boat that will take the new wife to start her new life. This film was made as part of the BBC series, Other People's Lives. A study guide for the series is available from the RAI, price £3.50. Catalogue number (16mm): 3RA115 £9.

[See Chole-Circumcision for bibliography.]