Smelting iron : caste and its symbolism in South-Western Ethiopia

Abstract

“Society is a human product. Society is an objective reality. Man is a social product. – The institutional world requires legitimation, that is, ways by which it can be ‘explained’ and justified. – The reality of the social world gains its massivity in the course of its transmission. This reality, however, is a historical one, which comes to each generation as a tradition rather than a biographical memory. – The original meaning of the institutions is inaccessible – in terms of memory. It therefore becomes necessary to interpret this meaning – in various legitimating formulas. These will have to be consistent and comprehensive in terms of the institutional order, if they are to carry conviction to the new generation” (Berger and Luckmann: 1966: 79).