A mh
lro Pos 101.2006
Order in a Disordered World
395
Fig. 11: The interior of a kitchen
in a central yard house. Note
the store platform and the raised
mud hearth to the wall (simi
lar to those described by Ernst
klamo). Surroundings of Gizen
(Gizen weredd).
| s located in the outer ring, diametrically opposed
0 the entrance and concealed by the central struc-
re i in the katiya house, finally, the back is clearly
^Parated by a partition wall of bamboo and mud
at h'a). When asked about the need of a katiya,
e opi e sa y t h at they do not want strangers to see
Women preparing porridge. Only the women
£ ^he house are allowed in the space behind the
tar^ a ‘ r ^ le back ^ s ’ again. a dirty space: fermen-
l0n (of food and beer) takes place here and the
majority of the pots are stored and used in this area.
It is worth noting that the process of fermentation
- and the pottery in which it occurs - is symboli
cally related to death and ancestralization in some
African cultures (David 1992: 193). Interestingly,
among the neighbouring Komo, the tradition ex
isted of burying the entrails of a deceased person
beneath the beer pots, at the back of the house
(James 1988a: 361), while the rest of the body was
deposited on the platform (the Bertha shetab) over