A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF AFRICAN AND EAST-ASIAN CULTURES: A FOCUS ON THE JAPANESE BONTEN AND THE BURKINABE GὺRᴐ

---

Résumé

This study analyzes two cultural practices in Japan and Burkina Faso (the Bonten ritual and Gὺrᴐ ritual, respectively) from a comparative perspective to uncover similarities and differences. Although the two countries are assumed to have no cultural similarities due to their geographic distance, the study shows that the two cultural practices under investigation share similarities, and that the existence of such similarities could be a supportive piece of evidence for C. A. Diop's (1954, 1974) hypothesis according to which the world's cultures originated from Africa. The similarities observed between the two cultural practices also support G. Bob-Millar’s (2022) assumption that several great civilizations emerged in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using the theory of cultural evolution (R. Boyd et al. 1997) and especially based on data on some prehistoric Japanese cultural aspects, the paper explains the differences between Bonten and Gὺrᴐ in modern Japanese and Burkinabe societies as the results of the cultural evolution of the Japanese culture. That is, the representation, the naming, and the celebration of Bonten may have changed through time as one of the effects of the national development of Japan.

Mots-clés

West African culture, Japanese culture, Bonten, Gὺrᴐ, African beliefs