The Gebusi An Interesting Culture - 909 Words

The Gebusi are an interesting culture with a set of standards that clash heavily with western ideas of morality. To the Gebusi people they are not infringing on any inherent set of moral rules, but as westerners it is hard to read the ways of the Gebusi without feeling a little upset. They abuse and put the woman down, and kill each other over sorcery that no one is actually practicing. Despite these seemingly horrible things, the Gebusi practice a much interconnected family unit that celebrates the idea of Kogwayay: togetherness, friendship, similarity. A major aspect of the Gebusi culture that I would like to explore is their idea of death and what causes it. The Gebusi believe that all adult deaths are the cause of acts of sorcery, committed by fellow members of the tribe, or close tribes. Although no evidence has ever been collected that showed any member of the Gebusi people to practice sorcery. So why then do the Gebusi cling to this idea of sorcery based death? The Gebusi so firmly believe this that 20% of all adult deaths are sorcery based executions. The Gebusi believe in a balance of life, if someone in the tribe dies then someone else must die to make up for this loss. This idea of a balance of life also seeps into Gebusi marriage practices. If two Gebusi people wish to get married often the sister of either the groom or bride must also marry the brother or â€Å"brother like† of the other spouse so that one clan is not losing aShow MoreRelated Bruce Knauft and The Gebusi Religion1300 Words   |  5 PagesAs anthropologist Bruce Knauft described, the Gebusi clan had words that described many different aspects, examples included oil the Gebusi word for tomorrow and yesterday and owa for grandparents and grandchildren, but the most defining one was kogwayay, a catchfall marker to describe all of their cultural distinction. Because of kogwayay’s branching terminology, kogwayay is also the Gebusi’s word for ethnicity, the identi fication with a cultural group because of shared values customs and beliefs