body images beauty culture and language - Africa Regional ...

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Such constructions in which body parts constitute the central lexes and to which aesthetic signification is attached seem mostly applicable to the female sex (as distinct from feminine gender), but less overtly to the male sex. The term for beauty in the language is ẹwà while the term for beautiful arẹwà is gender neutral but “female” and “beauty” seem to be the normative collocates in Yoruba construction, 6 which contrasts with the reported situation in western patriarchal discourse in which the female body is ‘frequently depicted … as fluid, unstable, chameleon-like’ (Creed 1995: 87). 7 As I will elaborate upon later, the analysis here of ‘female’ and ‘beauty’ as normative collocates is not meant to suggest that the male body and body parts are completely free of cultural inscription in Nigerian African culture. Idi bebere, Obìnrin RọÃgbọÃdọÃ: Plump Beauty in Nigeria African Cultural-Semiotic Construction While facial attractiveness is a general desideratum for beauty, plumpness or roundness as well as a jutting backside is also a pervasive image in traditional Nigerian African construction of female beauty. 8 Among other expressions, the ancient Yoruba proverb, Tẹni ni tẹni: Ọmọ ẹni kò s’èdí bèbèrè ka f’ileke sidi omo elomii (“Ours is ours, even if our child does not possess rounded buttocks, we would not therefore wear beads on the buttocks of someone else’s daughter”) strongly suggests that a lot of cultural value is placed on female jutting backside. The item obìnrin rọÃgbọÃdọÃ –‘plump rounded 6 It should be noted that the relevant lexical items do not always contain sex (female/male) markers, as shown in some of the examples above. However, the cultural context within which they are applied and comprehended is often unambiguous as to the sex of the referent. In some examples, the referent is exclusively female; for example, a male person is never referred to as Adúmáadán or ApọÏnbéporé even if his complexion happens to be “dark and smooth” or “smoothly ‘red.’” 7 Creed in this article assembles a number of such representations including those by Montrealay 1978, Kristeva 1982, Bakhtin 1984 and Creed 1993. 8 On the cultural value of female ‘roundness’ and interconnection with sexuality in other parts of Nigeria, especially the South Eastern part, see Ikpe (2005) and related web narratives, especially Ann Simmons, “Where Fat is a Mark of Beauty” (http://www.clcmn.edu/sfodness/1457/Articles/Where%20Fat%20Is%20a%20Mark%20of%20Beauty.htm, and Brunnette, “Bountiful Brides” ( http://www.blogger.com/postedit.g?blogID=18789442&postID=114904612478212163), among others.
eautiful woman’ is ubiquitous in ancient Yoruba sayings and sundry aesthetic expressions about beauty. A riddling game, ki lo sunwọÃn l’ébè? or ki lo sunwọÃn l’ ábà ? (“what’s nice to have in the home/farmstead?”) invariably includes as one of the answers: obìnrin rọÃgbọÃdọÃ sunwọÃn l’ébè or obìnrin rọÃgbọÃdọÃ sunwọÃn l’ ábà (“a plump, rounded beautiful woman is nice to have in the farm/homestead”). But perhaps the most intriguing poetic representation will be found in the praise chants of many prominent Yoruba communities which in part contain a sequence of boastful self- adulation over the theft or kidnap of a plump rounded beauty. Bewure ile ba sonu l’omu e ma fi lo mi Emi ki i s’egbe gberangberan Baguntan bolojo ba sonu l’omu e ma fi lo mi … Emi ki i s’egbe gbaguntan gbaguntan Sugbon bi obìnrin rọÃgbọÃdọÃ to leda lorun to tadi rekereke ba sonu l’omu Elesin ni e ran si mi… … Should a goat go missing in [this town], don’t bother to ask me For I am not a thief of goats. If a robust sheep goes missing in your homestead don’t ask me either For I do not belong to the class of sheep carriers. But if a plump rounded beauty with jutting backside is missing in your homestead… hurry Send a horseman and not anyone on foot For I have gone far with her, and she is Now embedded in my father’s homestead. It is interesting to track the survival of these age-long traditional expressions regarding body and beauty in contemporary Nigerian literature and culture. Notwithstanding the status of literature as idealized representation, it does offer a useful guide to the culture of the society being mirrored, sometimes through images so stunningly evocative as to excuse the insinuation of reality into so-called fictive narrative. Such reality evocations, of the image of the African woman as plump beauty, will be found in numerous literary representations. A few striking examples will suffice here. In Flora Nwapa’s Efuru, the quintessential beauty of that name “grew more beautiful everyday. … She looked very plump and appealing to the eyes” (Efuru 14). However, in Elechi Amadi’s The
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