Courtship display is a concept that is found amongst most animals. From aves, to reptites, amphibians and even mammals including human beings exhibit one form of courtship behavior or the other.
Dancing is one of the numerous courtship displays prevalent among different species of animals.
A typical example is that of cocks. They usually perform so sort of dance where they flap their wings against one of their legs when they want to mate.
Dancing as a courtship display is also common to humans amongst other things. And we cannot talk about this without mentioning a particular people who have taken this to a whole new level. We're talking about the Woodabe tribe of Niger.
The Wodaabe culture is one of the 186 cultures of the standard cross-cultural sample used by anthropologists to compare cultural traits.
The Wodaabe also known as the Mbororo or Bororo, are a small subgroup of the Fulani ethnic group. They are traditionally nomadic cattle-herders and traders in the Sahel, with migrations stretching from southern Niger, through northern Nigeria, northeastern Cameroon, southwestern Chad, western region of the Central African Republic and the northeastern of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Wodaabe translates "people of the taboo" , to mean that they respect certain taboos.
They take "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" quite seriously.
In fact, the Wodaabe have been called ‘the vainest people in the world’. The men pride in their beauty so much that they even move around with small handheld mirrors.
When a man is regarded as extremely attractive in Wodaabe culture, he is called ‘kayeejo naawdo’, which translates to ‘hurting man’, meaning they are so beautiful it hurts to look at them.
The Guérewol is an annual ritual and competition that sees young men dress up in elaborate ornamentation and traditional face paint and gather in lines to dance and sing. The goal? To get the attention of one of the judges – a marriageable young woman. In this particular tribe, the male beauty ideal is all about tallness, bright eyes and teeth, so men will often Jump high, roll their eyes and bare their teeth to show off their sex appeal.
The Guérewol is a week-long event made up of the Yaake(a courtship dance ) and other less famous elements—bartering over dowry, competitions or camel races among suitors.
Here the young Wodaabe men, with elaborate make-up, feathers and other adornments, perform the Yaake.
The participants often drink a fermented bark concoction to enable them to dance for long periods, which reputedly has a hallucinogenic effect.
One facinating thing is that a married woman can be "stolen" from her husband if she fancies any of the suitors.
Thanks for reading.
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REFERENCES:
Wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gu%C3%A9rewol. Accessed 2nd July, 2022.
Dr. Kate Lister. Sex in Our Strange World | The Male Beauty Pageant Where Female Judges Sleep with the Winners. https://amuse.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/neg5g8/wodaabe-wife-stealing-sex. Accessed 2nd July, 2022.
