Pages: 73-85 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.55086/sp2367385

The Avatime education system was seriously transformed under the influence of Christian missionaries and European civilization, therefore the author used unstructured interviewing, questioning and the anthropological method of participant observation to reconstruct the autochthonous, pre-colonial worldview and identify the basic principles of the Avatime children's socialization. The most important feature in the autochthonous Avatime culture was the community and the moral principles guarded by the elders: the deities who established these rules were far from people, and ancestral spirits served as mediators between their world and the human world. The elder became the governor — a representative of the people world who knows the traditions but already close to ancestral spirits. Education systems changed depending on the stage of child development. Nevertheless, the goal of education naturally and intuitively pursued from childbirth, remained unchanged and consisted in assimilation of the individual to other members of the community through the formation of their behavior in generally accepted model. Procreation is a public duty, so a child takes the place prepared for him in the lineage, clan, community and in the Universe as a whole.

Keywords: Africa, Avatime, parenting, socialization, oral tradition, pre-colonial time, ancestral spirits

Information about author:

Alina Lapushkina (Moscow, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. International Center of Anthropology, National Research University Higher School of Economics. Staraya Basmannaya St., 21/4, Moscow, 127051, Russian Federation; Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Spiridonovka St., 30/1, Moscow, 123001, Russian Federation
E-mail: [email protected]
ORCID: 0000-0002-9476-9288