Culture is a combination of many different things and elements like olden times, talent, and gastronomy. Studying a single culture requires a lot of time and effort to identify with the core values and ground rules of the culture. It also requires a lot of consultations and research (Britannica, 11).
The African continent has fifty-three countries; each of these countries has got different cultures from the rest. Some of these cultures include; religious conviction, tribes, fine art, verbal communication, clothing, cookery, and carnival. There are several tribes in the African continent for example; the Afar tribe found in Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia. The Anglo Ewe was found in republic of Ghana in southeastern parts. The Amharic found in Ethiopia, the Ashanti found in central Ghana, Bakongo tribe’s found on Atlantic coast and in Mali the Bambara tribes. The bushmen tribes are located in the Kalahari Desert. Other tribes of Africa include Samburu, Kikuyu, Luhya, Lou, Turkana Zulu and Yoruba. In Africa, Christianity and Islam are the two major religions held on to by many Africans although there are other African traditional religions that they also follow (Bowden & Rosie, 25).
Themes like pottery and printing have from time to time repeated themselves. Couples, the representation of a woman and child and a male with a wild animal are some of the commonly portrayed subjects. The depiction of couples in the African culture keeps up a correspondence to the neighborhood originators or the associates. The interpretation of woman and her child signifies the mother earth and the child characterizes the people living on earth. The elucidation of a man with a weapon or a horse is an indication of his status and the power bestowed upon him. A foreigner or an outsider is portrayed by a stranger who was never welcomed and in the pictures taken between the stranger and the African people, a gap always existed. In the African culture songs were used as an approach to communiqué (Bowden & Rosie, 31).
Vegetables, seafood and tropical fruits were the beautiful mixtures of African food. There were various disparities in African food depending on the region. For request food in central Africa is influenced by the plants grown there while in northern Africa pastries and bakery items are included in their food as an influence from turkey. Garments and festivals mainly depended on successions like planting and harvesting (Bowden & Rosie, 38).
In the land of basketball and pies, America has a totally different culture from Africans and the social order is a blend of immigrants and indigenous Americans and having gone through ethnic intolerance four races are renowned in the nation-state including African America. The big numbers of people in America are Protestants although there are other religions like Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam. The major language in America is English but due to many immigrants originating from Spain, Spanish becomes the next top verbal communication. The most fashionable clothing in America is the blue jeans (Hawley, John & Katerine, 08).
India is well known for its highly spiced foods and techniques of healing like “yoga”, its culture originated from the Indus valley evolution and it is from there that it observed the Vedic epoch. As a worldly country it includes a big population with a number of religions such as Hinduism, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism (Britannica, 11).
Almost every culture has a creation myth and all the myths are directly reflected in the bible in the book of genesis. From a biblical point of view, Adam and Eve were the first human beings who gave their instantaneous off spring’s information that later became history. Some of the information is found even today in genesis and as the offsprings sprinkled, they carried what was essential to them plus with time history were misrepresented and an assortment of cultures urbanized. However in many cases the fundamental story remains the same even in the modern science. All the creation myths appear to be from genesis although in several cases, very small elements of the inventive anecdotes are left (Hawley, John & Katerine, 08).
Cosmogony is any hypothesis that concerns the existence of the universe. Cosmogony is a Greek word that basically means the birth of the world. In astronomy the word is used to mean the theory of creation of the solar system. Several cosmogonies discuss repeated cycles of creation and destruction of the world. These can be divided into several categories namely the Egyptian, Ugaritic, Hittite and Mesopotamian cosmogonies (Britannica, 11). Each of these categories is further divided into more cosmogonies such as Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Heliopolis and Thebes. Under the Indian American culture they include; American Indian Lore, Mesoamerican religion, Aztec. The ancient European cultures also have got their own cosmogonies which include the Hellenistic religion, Greek religion and Finno-Ugric religion; also the Norse mythology which consists of the Askr & Embia, Augelmir and Midgard. The Christians also have the; Cathar doctrines, Erigena. Other cosmogonies are such as polytheism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Lurianic Kabbala, Islamic Doctrines, huainanzi, legend of Pan Gu, An:Annum, Enuma Elish, Hittite religion, Mithraism, Zoroastrianism and sacred concept. At present many of these mythical have been dropped and the origin of the universe is now explained using astrophysics. This is now referred to as physical cosmology that is shaped by mathematical calculations which analyze the universe as a whole (Britannica, 11). Physical cosmology explains the world’s existence starting from the big bang theory where the world is thought to have emerged from the cosmic inflation. The trend has now shifted from the traditional explanation to that of the natural science which people have come to accept as being more factual (Hawley, John & Katerine, 08).
“… The universe is random and inefficient, but in the long run effectively acts as a teaching aid. …how we look at the universe has changed over time and has now been influenced by natural sciences ideologies.”
Steven Weinberg
In his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces Campbell states most of the mythical theories that have survived to date have a common structure which he referred to as the monomyth (Campbell, 08). On page 23 of his book, he described the monomyth in the following quote.
“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man”
Campbell Joseph
He describes some of the modern situations as being not relevant in the modern because they lack the monomyth aspect which is a journey with stages. He describes that the hero comes from an ordinary world and gets a call to adventure; he then faces a lot of challenges along the way and usually needs a lot of help to make it through so that he can accomplish his boon. With his boon, he decides to return to the ordinary world of his origin where he applies the boon and makes the world a better place. A set of heroes is needed as Campbell describes in his book to help develop novel mythology because with it there will be a significant development in the world as a whole. He uses the examples of Christ, Moses, Buddha, Osiris, and Prometheus (Campbell, 08) people who left a great mark in the world and are remembered to date.
Work cited
Bowden Rob, Wilson Rosie. African Culture. Heinemann/Raintree publishers. 2009. Pp.20-41.
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 1st edition, Bollingen Foundation, 1949. 2nd edition, University of Princeton Press. 3rd edition, New World Library, 2008.
“Creation myth.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, 2011.
Hawley, John F. & Katerine A. Holcomb Foundations of Modern Cosmology. Oxford University Press, Oxford: 2008.