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| Title: | Knowledge and Belief in Suku Thought |
| Author: | Kopytoff, Igor |
| Year: | 1981 |
| Periodical: | Africa: Journal of the International African Institute |
| Volume: | 51 |
| Issue: | 3 |
| Pages: | 709-723 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Congo (Democratic Republic of) |
| Subjects: | epistemology ancestor worship Suku (Democratic Republic of Congo) Religion and Witchcraft Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) |
| External links: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/1159605 https://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pao:&rft_dat=xri:pao:article:4011-1981-051-00-000014 |
| Abstract: | For all the importance of ancestors in African traditional life and thought, there is surprisingly little elaboration of the mode of their existence in the other world. The discontinuity in creativity is baffling until one realises that the puzzle in large measure arises from the words used by Western anthropologists in describing the problem. The author contends that here one is dealing with questions of knowledge and not with questions of belief. Under traditional parochial conditions characteristic of many parts of pre-colonial Africa, Africans did not belive that ancestors were active; rather, they knew they were. Given this, it was only reasonable of them to disclaim additional knowledge where it was clearly unobtainable. In this light the author examines certain Suku concepts (-baanza, 'thought'; -zaaya, 'knowledge'), discusses some of the implications of the similarities between traditional Suku epistemology and that of classical nineteenth century Western science, and probes what might be called the 'ethnography of usage' of certain Western concepts by anthropologists as they think and write about African notions. Notes, ref., French sum. |
