98 have is between a male year (Odun ti o ya ako) and a female year
(Odun ti a ya abo). The point of difference between these two types of years is in the level of peace and safety to life during the particular year. Thus, a year in which many disasters happen and many deaths occur is regarded as a mate year, white a year of relative peace and plenty is a female year.30
It can be seen that the in Yoruba traditional societies just like the rest of Africa, that time is based on historical events important to them like famine, wars, births and deaths. There is creativity and originality that is lacking to invent an alternative means but they are contented to make due what nature has provided. This is evident to the fact that the traditional Yoruba people were not educated to read and write and this was a serious impediment to their creativity.
99 Etu ca si ya?( How far has the sun arrived?)
Etu ca ngopi ya? (which position has the sun reached?) Etu atu ngopi ya? (how far has the sun ascended?) Etu aga ngopi ya? (how far has the sun
gone?)33
The verbs used here like ca to arrive, atuto ascend, aga to pass are implied. The question should be etu si ya? Or etu ngopi? namely, how much sun? Contemporarily, the question refers to the number on the watch dial. The temporal expressions used to mark the period of a month use the moon to designate it. Equally some expressions of the year employs some of agricultural activities like rain and events characteristics of dry season like the heat, the ashes of the plain and some stars.
The traditional time among the Lugbara can be said to be anthropocentric i.e it pivots on the human person, but it is on the person who has to be understood not as an isolated individual but rather as a social being. Hence time is essentially personal and communal. It is time that requiresthe attention to the person and to the community for it to be understood and managed.
The meaning of event and the temporal expression is understood both from the event and from the person referring it.
The reference to the person is easily understood when one considers for instance that the sunrise or sunset, the phases of the moon, the fall of the rain, and the agricultural activities are not taking place always and everywhere at the same time.
Consequently, they cannot be perceived by everyone in the same manner. Harvesting is not an objective exercise in the sense that weather condition and agricultural tradition vary from place to place. Hence, one has to know the person and his/her place and traditions in order to understood the temporal expressions that such a person is using. This personal knowledge is particularly
100 essential when a temporal expression is not established but newly
constructed by the interlocutor at the moment it is used.34
The temporal expression among Lugbara shows that they are not uniformly spread in the daytime, monthly and yearly times. A particular period of the month or of the year used some expressions more than the other periods. Expressions marking daytime is concentrated at the beginning and at the end of the day especially at sunset and sunrise especially between 5.00 and 8.00am and 5.00 am and 8.00pm respectively. Also in relation to the year, greater number of temporal expression relate to the month of March from rainy season begins and month of August when the rainy season begins after a short lull and the month of November and December marking the end of the rainy season and beginning of dry season. The time of the year that has more temporal expression are those that feature ―intensive activity‖. Here lesser number of expressions occur in April and May, when work in the fields is coming to an end but harvest time is still ahead. This season is marked by hunger. Months of September and October repeat the situation of May but without threat of hunger. Months of January and February have a low number of temporal expression because they are the height of dry season, when human activities diminish.35
From this, it is seen that temporal expression goes with greater activity. Greater activities generate more temporal expressions. Human activities influence the sense of time. Increase of works needs more time to accomplish it, time is measured and managed in terms of action.
101 4.2.5 MEASUREMENT OF TIMETIME IN BASOTHO TRADITIONAL SETTING.
The temporal analysis of time in Basotho was reflected in Mohatlane article as a life-view and the socio-cultural situation of the Basotho community. Mohatlane used a Moshoeshoe le Baruti which is a historical drama which shows how the missionaries arrived in Lesotho and how their actions have relevance to actual time and future time. In that drama, there are characters that create time, or whose roles were governed by time. Act 1: scene 5. Page: Kaotla. Letsatsi le hlahlamela dithaba.36
This assertion was made at the court which means that the ―sun is setting‖. Here there is a specification of time in the stage direction. The time specification in Sesotho shows that kgotla(court) holds in the morning and not any other time as introduced by the missionaries. This event is used to create time communication among the Basothos . Time is employed here to show the culture and the worldview of the Basotho as African people. Time is bound up and utilized in the culture of the people. The sun is setting can be a time indicator, letsatsi le hlahlamela dithaba this is to show that it was not morning but afternoon that the sun starts to set.37
Act 3 scene shows a character expressing displeasure of the non- utilization of the passing time.
Mosadi (Kolbe): in page 38 remarked: Efela e se e le bosiu ha e se ele hora ya borobong tjena.Kolbe‘s wife (it is indeed very late as it is already nine o‘clock). It could be deduced here that there is departure of past ways of experiencing time. She demonstrated the importance of time in their attitude. Time here reflects the specificity of time and shows why other events in the sense is possible. Also a modern character here pursues a linear dimension of time. i.e from
102 one point to the other. Two set of people here are the modernist who are more concerned with future event and the traditionalists who are conservative in the use of social time.
Also among the Tiv‘s of Africa, "time of day" is usually indicated by the sun or by the activity carried out at that time. The day is not, separated into units which may be counted. According to Bohannan, Tiv who are acquainted with the use clocks use the word ahwa for "hour," which, outside the fact that it resembles English word, is the plural of ihwa, meaning "mark" or "tally."
So, when they count "hours" they are actually counting marks on the watch rather than artificial units of time. Longer periods of time may be measured by the cycles of the moon and the sun.
Actually, many African peoples have counted in terms seasons rather than of "years," because the former are more concrete, more definitely connected with noticeable changes in activity.38
It is true that the exposition done above is all about time measurement in traditional African setting. But a closer look at African modern society, there seems to be more or less an emergence of new system and a clear departure from the past. It is now evident that cock crowing and the early morning bird songs has changed baton with watches and clocks. The culture of estimated timing gradually transfuse into time accuracy afforded by the foreign medium of time measurement. Cyclical time is now being replaced, and sometimes, adapted to linear time. The shift from cynical and phenomenological perception of time to the linear view of time now allows the use of calendar and other advance means of time calculation for retrospection not only into distant past but also project into long future. In the process of adaptation, contemporary African society has invented a system of observing time in accordance with the traditional numerical language.
103 4.3. TRANSMISSION OF TIME IN AFRICAN CULTURE
Communication is a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs or behavior or a system for transmitting or exchange of information.39For time to be understood there must be a communication or transmission of it for it to be understood. Different cultures in Africa have a unique way of communicating this important key concept for easy comprehension and application. It means that Africa is doomed if she can not transmit her precious value. It then becomes an urgent task that time is clearly understood for express communication. Where there is no clear expression of time, people perish and grope in darkness. This work attempts in this section to review some cultures to know how time is expressed in their individual culture and then synthesize on what will be obnatainable for the whole of Africa.