Now most of you are probably wondering what actually is a fattening room or how is it used in Nigerian Society. By providing you with this brief overview on the matter it will allow you to gain more knowledge and understanding of a culture that is so diverse and unique. A fattening room is usually a small room or hut made of grass and mud where young girls or brides to be go as a rite of passage. The hut is usually owned by a patriarch of some sort, usually the girl’s father. In this room, young girls are forced to eat excessive amounts of food such as a variety of beans, rice, porridge ( gari) and herbal supplements so that they can gain weight as much as possible. The process usually lasts several months depending on whether the family can afford to have their daughter in seclusion for such a long period of time without working and just eating. Although eating and napping takes up the majority of the girls’ time, elder women teach and tell stories of how to take care of their future husband and family. Although most girls remain lethargic and inactive during these few months, they do engage in some light activity. A traditional dance, the ekombi, is taught to the girls by the elder women. This is the dance that they will perform on the day of their weddings as a sign of transitioning back into society as female adults. Although the process was practiced more in the earlier years of the Nigerian culture, it still remains to be a tradition that is considered crucial in order to become a woman or get married in some parts of Nigeria. Based off my sources, Anne Simmons (writer of article) travels to the location of Akpabuyo, Nigeria where she encounters the use of fattening rooms. She encounters the traditions and customs of the Efik people specifically through individuals such as a teenager named Margaret Ene who is embarking on the journey to womanhood through the fattening rooms.
When I first discovered this information, I was quite unsure of what to do or where to start. How can I understand something so vastly different from my own culture? So in order to try and help myself comprehend this culture, I started to use different components from our Anthropology class. I had to start somewhere, so I tried to see Nigerian women and their body images through a cultural relativism approach. Even though I don’t agree with some aspects of this culture, I have to recognize that there is some internal logic that must make sense to the people within the community otherwise they wouldn’t be engaged in it in the first place; I have to accept it for what it is. My next step was to try and reread different definitions of culture that I could possibly apply to the Nigerian society. I came across Abu- Lughod’s definition of culture. “Culture is an account of a particular process practiced by particular people in a particular setting.” That’s a lot of particulars in one sentence! But by applying his definition of culture to my findings about fattening rooms and Nigerian women, some light was shed on the situation. Of course there opinion of body image is going to be different than mine! They are a different people, practicing different things in an entire different country! So if American society and Nigerian society look at the same account, (fattening rooms) we can understand specifically why opinions differentiate through the use of the three points. (people, practices, place.) Thanks Abu-Lughod!
After exploring different definitions of culture, it triggered the inner anthropologist in me. I started to think about more issues in class we discussed including the element of space. Space can be broken down into two parts: the experience of space and the physicality of it. So I started to think about what goes on in the fattening room as activities and then what it physically looked like. Okay, so I was on the right track. Then I started to think about our discussion in lab about space. Does space affect culture? Or does culture affect space? When does a space become a place? Referring to James Fernandez’s theory, space acquires meaning only through practice. For example if I’m not going to a fattening room, it isn’t a place to me. But what about to the Nigerian people? How do they transform this space into place? So the main reasons why women—or rather girls—go into the fattening rooms is to gain weight. They want to gain weight not out of pure motivation for themselves but because of the pressures from their society and men. “The months spent in pursuit of poundage are supplemented by daily visits from elderly matrons who impart tips on how to be a successful mother.” (Simmons) I also came another interesting quote in Loeb Andler’s book, Women in Cross Cultural Perspective. “Being a mother is the crown of life for the Nigerian woman. To be barren in the worst curse that can befall her. Having many children constitutes a great social insurance and guarantees protection against dependency in old age.” (135 Andler) Basically, having the ability to get married and produce children is crucial to women in Nigerian. In order for a man to consider a woman for marriage, he must see that she is able to bear children and carry out his family name and its lineage. If the woman has a child outside of marriage, she is shunned.
“They advise me to keep calm and quiet, eat the gari, and not to have many boyfriends so that I avoid unwanted pregnancy,” Margaret said of her matron teachers. “(Simmons)
So let’s recap. Girls go into fattening rooms so they gain weight which will lead them to find a husband. They want a husband so they can produce children since that’s the “crown of life” for Nigerian women and can’t do so outside of wedlock. But why does gaining weight have to lead to all of these events? Women in the United States who want to find a potential mate just make sure their physical appearance is neat and beautiful through clothes and makeup. Why can’t women in Nigerian do that instead of getting involved with health problems and complications? (I must say while thinking this I let my ignorance get the best of me. ) And then it hit me. Well of course they are going to want to gain weight when most parts of Africa have issues of malnutrition and starvation involved! I’m so used to thinking that gaining weight is a form of lack of control and laziness that it blurred my ability to see the real reasons. In the United States, for the white American middle class, being malnourished or dying of starvation isn’t a problem! We see that the thinner you are the more beautiful you are which will land you a husband! I let my own culture and its internal logic gets in the way of trying to understand another culture. Men in Nigeria want women who are full figured, have big hips to give birth and enough fat on their bodies to nourish their babies.
“Malnutrition of young children has been a more intransigent problem in Africa than in another other region of the world. On a regional level, Latin American, the Near East, South and Southeast Asia, and the Pacific have enjoyed significant declines in the past two decades in proportion of young children classified as chronically undernourished. In contrast, Africa’s proportion has remained constant, at about one- third of children.” (Bloch 73) Women in these areas need to be bigger and gain weight before pregnancy in order to sustain the lives of their babies while they are pregnant and when the babies are born. So after much investigation and self exploration involved, I’ve learned that the fattening room is an essential place for women because of their country’s conditions, history and traditions. I guess space really can only be considered a placed when there is meaning behind it.
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