Jacqueline Engel's List: How Females are Portrayed in Different Cultures.

• Marriage marks the assumption of personal responsibility, signified outwardly by the acquisition of a homestead. A man wishes to marry as many wives as he can because, although a man with one wife is a full member of society, he who has three or four (more being unusual outside the Kwar Reth), is a man of substance and power. This is because his gol will become large and powerful and in a position to dominate in its locality. Where an appeal to the spear is an ever present possibility there is definite strength in numbers. There is no place in society for batchelors or spinsters of mature age, and in fact with the exception of Reth's daughters and the mentally deficient they hardly exist. Women outnumber men, so that polygyny is reasonable and almost necessary.<!-- document parargraph -->   
• The marriage tie creates an obligation to pay cattle, but it is not created by or dependent upon such payment. To render a union a marriage only two things are essential. First there must be no positive barrier, (such as known consanguinity between the parties, whether through male or female lines of descent) and secondly there must be an offer and an acceptance.
• The offer and acceptance are symbolised by the man offering to the women's gol a sheep (dyel dhok). Acceptance of this sheep signifies acceptance of the suitor. The marriage is then complete. There follows the beer brewing (tieng mogho) and a wedding dance which is held in the woman's village and which serves the important purpose of fixing the marriage in the minds of the public.
• The completion of the cattle payments (kany) may be delayed over a period of years, and until they are complete the woman usually continues to live in her own homestead where her husband may visit  [Page 26]   her. The inconvenience of this arrangement acts as a spur to the husband to complete the payments as quickly as possible in order to get his wife home to do the cooking.

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• Both men and women are eligible to become servants of the king, but the women predominate. This ceremony does not release a woman from her husband, but when they become old they may wander about, and follow other men.<!-- document parargraph -->   
• People who are not in sympathy with the ceremony are not readily admitted to see the performance. Some say that the hand is held in the boiling oil or butter, but others say that it is barely touched to the oil.<!-- document parargraph -->   
• An indication of the fact that the power of Nikawng among the Shilluks is not as great as their professions would indicate, is furnished by comparing the servants of the king with the witch doctors. They work along the same lines, but the powers of the witch doctors are greater
• The possessed are supposed to be holy, but they are among the most lustful of the people. They make greater claim to personal piety than the witch doctors, but their lives are no better.
• The women of this class are much more active than the men, who are usually idlers.<!-- document parargraph -->   

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• Women and those who are too old to dance assemble round the huts, gossiping and drinking merissa with the occupants. The important men of the settlement, the Jak and their assistants and a few of the most respected elders assemble near to the hut of the Jago who offers them refreshment and tobacco. Meanwhile the warriors arrive in small batches, and stand outside the village. The normal “Lau” of cloth is discarded and they put on skins fastened from their waists and ornament themselves with their special dancing beads and sashes. They carry with them their best spears, but not the fighting shield, for the Cong has no military associations. Some have small shields of hippo or crocodile skin make in miniature imitation of the heavy war shield, but the majority carry parrying-sticks or “stick-shields.” Some wear strings of small bells wound crosswise round their legs.

• The Poro society, as the sacred political structure, is concerned with in-town fighting, murder, rape, the violation of a girl before puberty, land-tenure disputes between towns, and the breaking of major laws of the medicines. Prior to government control, before two towns would enter into open warfare, the palaver was discussed by members of the respective Poro leadership of each community. Then the ngamu, or devils, of each town would engage in a mock battle. If the ngamu of one was victorious, the other community would capitulate. Today such matters are still discussed in this way even though overt warfare is now legally prohibited.

• The Sande is the women's counterpart of the Poro. All women are required to join. In contrast to the Gola and Vai Sande associations, there are no masks associated with the Kpelle Sande. Initiation involves taking the novice into an age-set community in the forest near the town, where they remain for up to a year. There, they undergo scarification along the waist and a clitoridectomy and are later reborn back into the community with new names. Traditionally, the Sande bush lasted for three years. Since the period of modernization, however, the Sande bush, like the four-year Poro bush, has been reduced to one year only. Although many of my informants maintain that this reduction was the result of government intervention, several people in the government who have direct responsibilities for the Poro and Sande deny that the one-year rule was ever formally established. Instead, the reduction appears to be the consequence of a decision by the communities themselves in response to modernity. During the last Poro initiations, the now-deposed President Tolbert strongly encouraged a return to the longer bush period. Several in government hoped to use the extended time as a device for teaching literacy and other modern skills. One difficulty with such a proposal is the great cost borne by the families of the initiates and the time that youth would have to spend away from helping their families with the farming.
• While the Sande bush is in session, the women are officially responsible for the moral well-being of the community. Anyone who commits a crime against a sacred ruling structure is first brought before the women; then, if the offender is male, he is tried by the Poro Zo. A portion of any fines levied must be given to the women. Although there is no devil directly associated with the Sande, a society called the Mina does have specific duties to perform for the women while their initiation bush is in session.

• They are symbolically killed and eaten as marks are incised on their necks, chests, and backs. Each community Poro organization has its own distinctive scarification design. In this way Poro members can determine the particular Poro group an initiate joined. After scarification, the initiates are taken to a specially constructed village in the forest, where they live apart from the women. Both while they are being scarred and later when they are led to the initiation village, the kwelebah returns to town, first to announce that the boys were killed by ngamu and then to report that they have been successfully “reborn” by the Zo inside the womb of the ngamu's wife.
• The  [Page 10]   initiates are then taken back to the community at a time when all women are forbidden to leave their homes. They then participate in a ritual performance of being symbolically reborn from the womb of another bush-thing called the ngamu's wife. They are then taken to another fence outside of town, where they bathe, have white chalk rubbed on their bodies, and dress in newly sewn gowns given them by their families or sponsors in the society. The next afternoon they are led single file throughout the community and presented to the town chief. After the chief accepts the initiates they are released from the custody of the Poro Zo to their respective families.

• Say if there were an automobile accident on the road and some townspeople were killed, the news would first be carried to the town chief. He would call the big Zo of the Poro and they would close doors in the same way as if the devil [ngamu] was out of its fence. When all the women are inside of their houses, the Zo tell the close friends of the family of the people who were killed. Then, they call the wives and mothers of each of those killed and take them to a place where the friends are waiting to tell them what happened. That way the friends are there to help them with their grief. If the Zo did not do this, the women would probably kill themselves.

• Males and females never reveal some parts of their body which are wrapped up in sheets (sadar) in winter. At the height of summer, males will not take off their shirts either to relax, or to take part in activities such as wrestling or volley ball, or just to lie under the trees in the heat, as many do in the Punjab.

• Herding, hunting, and spear-fishing are primarily male activities; women  traditionally have manufactured cooking utensils, cultivated gardens, and prepared food.  <!-- document parargraph -->   

• Children are brought up in the house of their father. The Shilluk  do not segregate the sexes. Siblings and cousins of both sexes may play together, and a boy  may beat his sisters if he considers them unruly. There is a certain definite relationship  between children and their mother’s brother na.
• It is  the mother’s brother who usually gives a boy his first spear. The mother’s brother may also  influence the behavior and mate selection of his sister’s daughter since he is entitled to a  share of the cattle given to her as bride-wealth (Seligman and Seligman 1932: 55).

• He began by telling us that before his birth his mother had borne only female babies. She felt that it was necessary to have a male child to insure that someone would care for her in her old age. She decided to have sexual intercourse with her husband's brother; in that way, no legal charge of adultery could be brought against her lover. Just before her delivery in the resulting pregnancy, her husband tried to kill her. He was stopped by the townspeople, and Torkalong was born. Later, when Torkalong was about to be weaned, the husband tried to kill him but  [Page 61]   failed. Torkalong was blinded in the incident. When he was about grown, he dreamed that God spoke to him, saying that everything would turn out all right. The following day, the Iron Society performed in the community. The spirit-possession oracle, or faa sale, spoke directly to Torkalong. The society leaders were amazed, as they claimed that the medicine could only speak to the Zo or his assistant (the bakung). They decided that Torkalong must join the society and become a Zo.

• A man describes as ora all his wife's kinsmen and, strictly, all the kinsmen of the wives of the men of his own generation belonging to his own clan. This extension may be because he is allowed, at any rate in theory, to have access to the wives of such clansmen and temporarily takes over the in-law relationship with their parents. During the first years of marriage the members of the husband's gol have to respect and to avoid the members of the wife's gol. Pumphrey suggests that the basic reason for this is that the initial period of marriage is an unstable one and friction is gradually resolved as the bridewealth is paid off and children are born. To avoid friction the husband does not speak to his ora and meets them as little as possible.
• n a wider sense the ora tie is connected with certain sex taboos. The breach of these taboos is believed to cause dwalo sickness, a form of illness believed to affect both mother and child who will die unless the man who induced the mother to break the taboo will split a gourd in two and sacrifice a sheep.^{(3) (3) Pumphrey, S.N.R. 1941, Vol.XXIV, p.29.} There are certain ora relationships between lineages and one lineage will be ora to another. Thus, if men of lineage A have married women of lineage B, C and D, there are ora relationships between A and B; A and C; A and D. In such a case no men of lineages B, C and D  [Page 62]   could marry women from lineage A as this would prevent the correct working of the relationship of avoidance and would confuse the situation. Each lineage therefore develops a tendency to marry women of some other specific lineage,^{(1) (1) Pumphrey, S.N.R. 1941, Vol.XXIV, p.30.} but this is a traditional convention only and not compulsory.