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Progress Primary School 2021 Heritage Workbook Grade 6 Weeks 1 & 2

The document discusses clans and totems in Zimbabwean culture. It explains that a clan is a group of people descended from a common ancestor, and members of the same clan share the same totem. Totems represent an animal, bird, plant, or natural feature that is sacred to the clan. Eating the totem animal is taboo, and in some cultures people from the same clan cannot marry due to beliefs about producing weak offspring. The document asks students to identify their own totem and discuss three importance of totems.

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122 views3 pages

Progress Primary School 2021 Heritage Workbook Grade 6 Weeks 1 & 2

The document discusses clans and totems in Zimbabwean culture. It explains that a clan is a group of people descended from a common ancestor, and members of the same clan share the same totem. Totems represent an animal, bird, plant, or natural feature that is sacred to the clan. Eating the totem animal is taboo, and in some cultures people from the same clan cannot marry due to beliefs about producing weak offspring. The document asks students to identify their own totem and discuss three importance of totems.

Uploaded by

james
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Progress Primary School

2021 Heritage Workbook Grade 6


Weeks 1 & 2

Name ________________________________________________________
Week 1

Clans in Zimbabwe

A clan is a group of people who originated from a common ancestor. When people of the same
clan, they also have the same totem that is mutupo in Shona or isangelo in Ndebele. Clans have
created and maintained their identity around important characteristics of animals, birds, plants,
or place that is special.

The chosen characteristics of the animal can be its great size like the elephant, its bravery like
the lion, its speed like the cheetah and its importance like the heart to the life of an animal or
being. Hence, clans have totems have totems like Shumba/ Sibanda/ lion, Nzou/ Ndlovu/
elephant and Moyo/ Nhliziyo/ heart. Almost all indigenous totems are formed around animals,
animal parts, birds, snakes, water and names of ancestors: their appearances, good characters
or mighty power.

A clan that adopts a totem will have a strong connection between its clan members, the totem
animal or animal part and founding ancestors through religious or spiritual connections. Due to
the sacredness of totems, it is a taboo for clans to eat meat from their totem animals. People of
the same clan have got the same lineage that can be traced back to the founding ancestor
hence in most cultures, a girl and a boy from the same clan cannot get married as they are
considered to be brother and sister. Marrying of people of the same clan is believed to result in
the producing of weak and deformed children. However in some cultures if two people of the
same clan decide to get married, a spotless white cow is offered to the in-laws by the man
which in Shona is known as chekaukama.

The lineage with which a clan’s founders and ancestors can be patrilineal or matrilineal. A
patrilineal follows the father’s lineage while the matrilineal follows the mother’s lineage.

Task for you


What is your totem? Find any source, 3 importance of totems.
Exercise 1

1. What is a totem?
2. Define clan.
3. People of the same clan usually have the same ______________.
4. One person can have two or more totems. True/False?
5. Identify one taboo from the explanations provided above.
6. What do you think is a taboo?
7. Name two reasons why in some cultures people of the same clan are not permitted to marry.
8. If two people from the same clan decide to marry a __________________ is given to the
man’s in-laws to be.
9. What is the Ndebele term for totem?
10. Identify one totem you know and give its English Shona and Ndebele term.

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