does not have a strict hierarchical society, but there are hierarchies that I’m sure you would recognize. For example, you interact with your teacher differently than you interact with your classmates. Your teacher also interacts differently with her fellow teachers than with the principal.
The hierarchical system in Kabye culture is complex, but much of it is based on age. Within an age category, however, there are further hierarchical divisions. The order of Evala winners forms a hierarchy within an age group. People remember who beat whom in the Evala matches for the rest of their lives! If you lost to someone in Evala, you have to give him an extra amount of respect for the rest of your life.
Evala is connected to the history of Kabye society, including the Kabye’s relationship to their mountainous homeland. Kabye people trace their origins to a mountain chain that stretches across northern Benin, Togo and Ghana. Many people still live on this mountain chain. Those who no longer live on the mountain are still connected to an ancestral village there. In the mountains there is a set of foot prints imprinted in a rock. In Kabye’s creation myth, this is the location the first man descended from heaven, or the sky. As in many cultures today, people may not believe the creation story is literally true, but the feeling and values behind the creation myth are true and are important to a culture’s identity. Therefore, people continue to tell the creation myth and share the stories with children and visitors.
