The Shifting Feminine Statuses among Indigenous Peoples: Rethinking Colonization and Gender Roles among the WeppaWanno People of Mid-Western Nigeria

Abstract

In this work we have argued that the post-independent WeppaWanno patriarchal system has evolved not from its cultural past but as influenced by the duo cultural tragedies implicated in Nupe Islamic invasion and the British/Christian colonial rule. Thus stirring the trajectory from the familiar approach of Western-focused critic of pre- and post-colonial Africa, this paper views the evolving manifestations of feminine and gender-roles in WeppaWannoland as flexible and varied with the positioning of community’s cultural and socio-political experiences through the spectrum of Arabic, and Western colonial influences. The paper demonstrates using qualitative analysis, post-structural leaning, field interviews, and archival records, that while gender and class categories may be critical constituents of WeppaWannocosmology, flexibility of gender as a thought construct was far more important in most part of Africa in the definition of power, although such factors as achievement and ascription were essential.