(En)Gendering the Weather

The aim of this chapter is to come to terms with those two sticks or, more broadly stated, to delve into the relationship between the cultural construction of gender, sexuality, and rainmaking rites and beliefs in Ihanzu. Most anthropologists concerned with rainmaking in Africa, as good empiricists, have noted the centrality of gender and sexual symbolism in these rites and beliefs. Rainmaking in Africa has long interested Western observers, academic and otherwise. This chapter aims to show how, amongst the Ihanzu of north-central Tanzania, people's ideas about gender, sexuality, and transformative processes inform and give meaning to certain rain rituals and everyday practices and vice versa. The Ihanzu are a Bantu-speaking, matrilineal people numbering around 30,000. The chapter has shown some of the ways Ihanzu ancestral offerings for rain, in varied ways, play on themes of gender and sexuality

Biology · Environmental planning · Geography · Reproduction · Tanzania · African history and culture studies · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology · Ecology

• The New State of Nature

  Open Access•D Lipset•Conservation and Society•2013

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