Age Sets and Growing Up

An age set is a group of people born within a couple of years of each other. Age sets serve as a hierarchy of knowledge and service within Senufo culture: a person always knows who is older and who is younger. The person gains knowledge from an older person and passes that knowledge to a younger person. When a man is asked how old he is, he will usually find someone in his age set and reply, "I am the same age as he is."

 

Copyright 2001, Spurlock Museum, University of Illinois.

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