ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that the institutionalized housing arrangements of an African people can only be understood as cultural symbols with psychodynamic meaning and function, notwithstanding their use in food production, social organization, and the provision of shelter and warmth. It claims that neither the Gusii habitat in southwestern Kenya nor their means of surviving in it dictated the particular designs of buildings and homesteads that came to be embodied in traditional norms and to which Gusii individuals remained attached after economic conditions changed. For every Gusii person, the progress of life is charted by residence in succession of houses. The traditional house design, nevertheless, remains central to the culture that all Gusii share, and is a primary source of the symbols invoked in ritual. A close examination of Gusii cultural narratives reveals that features of the traditional house and its objects operate as symbols of feared and desired conditions, metaphorical representations of the self in states of danger and well-being.
