Volume 6, Number 2, Fall 2013

Kenya Studies Review ISSN: 2150-5764 (online) Volume 6, Number 2, Fall 2013 1 Table of Contents 1. From the Editor-in-Chief…………………………………………………………………………..…...2 2. From the Editors…………………………………………………….….…………………….……..….3 3. Celebrating Adornment in Kenya’s Diverse Cultures. By Ruth Nyambura, Peter Waweru & Tom Nyamache…………………………………………………………………………………..4 4. Cultural production in the Kenyan television viewing parlors of European football. By Solomon Waliaula and Roselyn Shigali…………………………………………………………12 5. Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Expression in Information Society. By Ajayi Taiwo Bosede, Babcock University, Ilisan Remo. Ogun State.....................................................40 6. Ethnocentrism: significance and effects on Kenyan society. By Margaret W. Njoroge and Dr. Gabriel N. Kirori…………………………………………………………………………………51 7. Towards proper cultural resources management for sustainable development in Nigeria. By Emeghara Evaristus Elechi………………………………………………………………………68 8. Cultural Production in the Kenyan Television Viewing Parlours of European Football. By Solomon Waliaula & Roselyn Shigali…………………………………………………………...80 9. The Glaring Deficiency of Logical Connectors in the Writings of Kenyan Secondary School Students. By Albert Mugambi Rutere, Moses Gatambuki Gathigia and Susan Njeri Mirigi……91 10. The Pedagogy of Literature in Kenya’s Education System: Where the Rains Started Beating Us By Albert Mugambi Rutere and Moses Gatambuki Gathigia……………………………..103 11. Interrogating the Knowledge of Communication and Personality Image Management in the Competitive Arts. By Okumu-Bigambo, W., Moi University, Eldoret, Kenya………………..111 12. Sign language in Kenya: a Paradigm shift towards qualitative development for inclusive education. By Njeri Kiaritha, Moi University, Eldoret……………………………………………….124 13. The Impact of Educational Background on Oral English Performance of Secondary School Students in South -West Nigeria. By T. A. Amao, Osun State University, Osogbo…………..133 14. The Language Question: The Potentials of Pidgin as a Lingua Franca for Nigeria. By Cletus I. Ihom (KSM), Benue State University, Makurdi-Nigeria……………………………………….152 15. Language as a Viable Mechanism for Evolving Authentic African Identity – A Philosophical Examination. By Sirajudeen Owosho, University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos, Nigeria…………..162 16. Practice and Dialectics of Change through Drama therapy: the Nigeria Example. By Nasir Taofiq Olaide, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State………………………...169 17. Using Play as Strategy for Language Development in Infants. By Florence A. Undiyaundeye, Federal College of Education, Obudu, Cross River State, Nigeria……………………………….….177 18. The Use of Vernacular Radio as a Medium of Family Life Education: A Study of ‘hutia mundu’ Programme of Inooro FM. By Martha N.K. Mbugguss, Africa Nazarene University, Nairobi…………………………………………………………………………………………..184 19. Breaking Barriers to Unemployment of Nigerians with Disabilities through Vocational Rehabilitation. By Emmanuel Olufemi Adeniyi & Anthonia Ifeoma Ajobiewe………………198 20. Language Problem across the Curriculum. By Ruth Abaya………………………………..209 2 Celebrating Adornment in Kenya’s Diverse Cultures By Ruth Nyambura*, Peter Waweru** & Tom Nyamache*** Abstract Self adornment plays a significant role in ensuring the continuity of the political, socio-cultural and ethno-moral principles of communities in Kenya. Whether with permanent marks like tattoos or scars, or temporary decorations like makeups, clothing and hairstyles. Adornment is a way of signaling an individual's place in society, marking a special moment, celebrating a transition in life or simply following a fashion. This paper analyses the history of adornment practices from ancient civilizations in Kenya. The study was informed by cultural history theory. Cultural history focuses on the changes and practices in human agency. Culture is transmitted across generations through the memory which is a faculty of the individual mind. Adornment is part of societal practices and basically the skin serves as a visible way of defining individual identity and cultural differences. It also serves as a text upon which reality is inscribed. Since the nineteenth to the twenty first century adornment in Kenya has been influenced by cultural globalisation and technology where recycling is done to produce ornaments. The study was based on secondary data and observations. The findings revealed that adornment is a means for self expression. It changes the wearer into an object shaped by colour, movement, textures, patterns and designs. Equally artistic growth of individuals can create something beautiful from very little. Key words: Adornment, Culture, beauty, symbolism, theory, ethno-moral principles *Ruth Nyambura is a lecturer at Egerton University, Njoro Campus **Peter Waweru is a lecturer at Laikipia University College ***Tom Nyamache is Associate Professor and Principal at Mount Kenya University. Ruth Nyambura, Peter Waweru & Tom Nyamache (2013) Celebrating Adornment in Kenya’s Diverse Cultures. Kenya Studies Review (KSR), Volume 6, Number 2. Copyright © 2013 Kenya Studies Review (KSR) 3 Introduction Adornment carries powerful messages about the decorated person. It communicates a person’s status in society, displays accomplishments, and encodes memories, desires and life histories. Many of the objects in the case are meant to appeal for these reasons. Body adornment falls under two categories; body art and body modification. Body art refers to the practice of physically enhancing the body by styling and decorating the hair, painting and embellishing the fingernails, wearing makeup, painting the body, wearing jewelry, and the use of clothing. Body art are by definition temporary. Body modification, on the other hand, refers to the physical alteration of the body through the use of surgery, tattooing, piercing, scarification, branding, genital mutilation, implants, and other practices. Body modifications are permanent and alter the body forever. For example, the Maasai people find beaded collar necklaces very attractive, especially the way they sway as a woman dances. Among the Kuna, slender limbs are thought beautiful, so women wrap wini (long strings of beads) around their arms and legs to make them look thinner and appealing. Most communities in Kenya adorned themselves in six general ways: scarification, body painting, beadwork, jewelry, piercing and hairstyling. Differences by gender, age, marital status and social position were thus expressed. Blackmun’s work gives a comprehensive presentation of art in Africa. It covers body arts from all parts of Africa, process of producing the works, and the reason of the arts. She states that East Africa is often neglected in the study of African art because historians of African art focus mostly on masks and sculptures, which is a rare art in east Africa. For this reason, East African people are erroneously thought to be less concerned with beauty than people from Central and West Africa. The real challenge is not to explain why one culture produces more or less in the way of material objects than another, but to establish how particular expressions or forms of creativity relate to their makers' and users' intentions and how they function and are given meaning in particular social contexts. Schurz states that before circumcision in Luhya and Agikuyu land the boys were smeared with fat and ochre. He wore a long thick hair reaching his shoulders. Sometimes it was left flowing but was always done upto many little tresses carefully arranged like a bundle of strings and painted with ochre and fat. Generally the circumcised boy added false hair to his natural one to attract attention to him and a quantity of tiny strings were worked in with the natural hair. The whole being was disguised with ample fat and ochre such that it looked like genuine hair. Cagnolo further reveals that boys adopted a cut commonly known as “Gutema rori.” Others shaved their head round from the forehead to the nape of their necks, others preferred to bind the back part of their hair into a narrow compact bundle like a cabbage stalk or pigtail. Those who followed this fashion usually added two more bunches of hair to their temples, others attached to hair one by one a considerable number of black feathers which were brought together at the nape with a light fan shape binding. Head shaving is common at many rites of passage, representing the fresh start that will be made as one passes from one to another of life’s chapters. Warriors are the only members of Maasai community to wear long hair, which they weave in thinly braided strands. Upon reaching the age of three “moons”, the child is named and the head is shaved clean 4 apart from a tuft hair, which resembles a cock’s comb, from the shape of the neck to the forehead. The cockade symbolizes the “state of grace” accorded to infants. Watts quotes Barton in his notes on the “Turkana Tribe” who praise their beadwork, ornamentation and clothing, noting that the women wore “a thick belt of beads, a V shaped skin apron decorated with beads and a skirt of skins with jagged ornamented edges.” He further observed that men did not have such clothing and a woman with the most beautiful apron was rewarded and respected in the community. Watts adds that the neighbouring Samburu women are known to lavish beads on their on their warrior lovers (muran). The beads are part of the gift exchange between the kin groups of the bride and groom during the marriage preparation

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