Talk:Bara people/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Delldot (talk · contribs) 02:37, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi Lemurbaby, excellent work so far, I think this article is close to passing as is. I see you haven't been around for a month but I'm also a veteran editor who goes dormant so we're a good match. I will leave comments in chunks so you can work on them as you have time.


 * The article changes tense often so it’s not clear how long of a tradition the practices in question are, e.g. ‘’ Men wore beaten bark cloth loincloths with jackets or tunics formed from stitched woven mats; older men's clothing included sleeves.[31] The wearing of charms is common among the Bara, as elsewhere in Madagascar; charms called tsimokotra were historically crafted from the bones of lemurs' feet to relieve fatigue.’’ So they used to wear loincloths? When? Now they currently wear charms, etc.  It might be cumbersome to offer time periods for each practice but in some cases that might help.


 * Another example of this vague time frame problem exists in the fady section: ‘’ it is forbidden to ever kill a relative,’’ but ‘’ historically...The deceased leader was given a new name after death that all were required to use’’. How long ago was this, and when did it stop? It might make sense to have separate paragraphs for historical and current practices.


 * Another tense change: ‘’ Among many Bara, wives were not buried with their husband and his children’’, then ‘’ It is believed that the spirits of the dead linger as ghosts’’ (I moved these sentences closer together so as not to interrupt the discussion of the burial sites, but feel free to change it if this juxtaposition creates a false implication.


 * May want to chop this long sentence int multiple shorter ones: ‘’ When bilo or salamanga healing rituals are being conducted, the ombiasy may erect a special barrier (kiady) in front of the entrance to the house where the ceremony is being held as an indicator that anyone whose family member has recently died (as well as any foreigner or stranger outside the community) is forbidden to enter for concern about breaking the power of the healing spell’’.


 * There are a lot of non sequiturs in the Culture section, e.g. ‘’ Agreements were traditionally formalized through a blood pact (fatidra).[3] The Bara live in rectangular earthen houses’’ (plus that tense change thing again). Would it help to flesh this out and add detail?


 * It would be awesome to have images if you can find them of the clothing, yarn, silk, houses, sculptures, spindles, charms, or other artifacts mentioned. I think that would add a lot.  There are lots of images of zebu, might one of those work?

I think I’ll stop there for now and see what you think of these comments. Very nice work so far! delldot  &nabla;.  02:37, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * No response here or by email so I'll go ahead and close this for now. But if you come back and address these issues feel free to relist at GAN!  If I'm around I'll see if I can help out.  delldot   &nabla;.  17:01, 9 October 2015 (UTC)