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| Title: | To drink or not to drink: beer brewing, rituals, and religious conversion in Maane, Burkina Faso |
| Author: | Luning, Sabine |
| Book title: | Alcohol in Africa: mixing business, pleasure, and politics |
| Year: | 2002 |
| Pages: | 231-248 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Burkina Faso |
| Subjects: | African religions religious rituals beer |
| Abstract: | This chapter is concerned with the place of beer in the socioreligious life of Maane, a Moose chiefdom that currently has the administrative status of 'département', 100 km north of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. In Maane, beer is central to a set of traditional religious practices as well as to the sociability of work parties and economic objectives at the marketplace. In relation to rituals, beer is seen as a means of communication and exchange with the ancestors. The author argues that the ritual importance of beer in Maane can only be understood in relation to the way beer is produced. This chapter on beer brewing as effective ritual work contributes to three debates. First, through an analysis of the relation between ritual and brewing it is clear that women are major ritual agents in Maane. Second, the debate on the question of what 'ritual behaviour' is is revisited. Beer brewing in Maane is considered to be a ritual act only in specific cases. Brewing beer for commercial purposes is not. This raises the question of how the distinction between ritual and nonritual brewing arises and what this tells us about the nature of ritual acts. Third, the value of beer production and consumption in ritual contexts is highlighted to facilitate an understanding of the ways in which converts to other religions, such as Roman Catholics and Protestants, opt out of, or keep their distance from, certain customary practices and association with beer. Bibliogr., notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |
