Anthropos: Anthropos, 79.1984

Anthropos, 79.1984

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschrift

Werks-URN (URL):: https://digi.evifa.de/viewer/resolver?urn=urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714820

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714820

Persistenter Identifier:: BV043334262

Titel:: Anthropos

Erscheinungsort:: Fribourg

Verlag:: Ed. St. Paul

Erscheinungsjahr:: 1906

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Wissensgebiet:: Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie > Allgemeines

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenband

Werks-URN (URL):: https://digi.evifa.de/viewer/resolver?urn=urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711819

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711819

Persistenter Identifier:: 1512370864325

Titel:: Anthropos, 79.1984

Erscheinungsjahr:: 1984

Signatur:: LA 1118

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenheft

Titel:: Bd. 79, 1984, Heft 1-3

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenartikel

Titel:: On the Non-Existence of an Ancestor Cult among the Tiv

Sonstige Person:: Edwards, Adrian Campion

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Anthropos 79. 1984: 77-112 On the Non-existence of an Ancestor Cult Among the Tiv Adrian Campion Edwards Introduction Any explanation of why the Tiv or any other people do something may be easily open to criticism. If I attempt to explain why the Tiv (or any other people) do not have a particular institution, my argument will be more difficult to prove, and also (since after all we are dealing with non-existent entities) more difficult to disprove. In discussing why the Tiv do not have an ancestor cult, I have both to explain how it is that the institution of patrilineal 1 descent among the Tiv does not receive ritual reflection in an ancestor cult, and also what other institutions can take the place of an ancestor cult in Tiv religion. Ulti mately, I am forced, in order to attempt to answer my original problem, to discuss several aspects of Tiv cosmology and ritual. The British administrative officers who were m charge of Tiv country from the beginning of effective occupation in 1907 till the movement known as the Namakaa or Haakaa in 1929-1930, Adrian Campion Edwards studied social anthropology at Cambridge University under Meyer Fortes and did field r ? search among the Ovimbundu of Angola in 1955-1956. In 1959 his doctoral thesis was accepted and he joined the Holy Chost Fathers. Between 1967 and 1970 he undertook a study °f the Tiv of Nigeria for the Diocese of Makurdi. From 1970 to 1973 he lectured in social anthropology at the Mission Institute, London. He was then head of the Ethnography Division in the Federal Department of Antiquities, Nigeria, hom 1973 to 1977. Between 1977 and 1982 he undertook pastoral work in the Port Harcourt Diocese, Nigeria. -He has published The Ovimbundu under Two Sovereignties (1962) and a number of articles in periodicals. He has also worked on tr anslations into Tiv. 1 “Patrilineal” means tracing descent through males, as does “agnatic.” “Matrilinea!” means tracing descent through females, so that an individual man inherits from his mother’s brother, not his own father. relied on interpreters for such information on Tiv ethnography as they gathered. They were rather hazily aware of the major Tiv akomho, which they interpreted as being deities with specific roles, 2 rather than as material signs of the mystical power of the living. The Haakaa 3 upheaval, which was essentially a witchhunt, in which those suspected of witch craft were obliged to yield up the paraphernalia of mystical ill-doing, had been to some extent a reaction against the strains associated with coloni al rule, although it was also a continuation of earlier movements against 4 tsav (witchcraft), and had received a certain degree of backing from the District Officers, who thought they were on the track of a band of dangerous cannibals. Its political consequence was a reorganization of the administration, which included the encourage ment of officials to become “Tiv specialists,” and its ethnographic consequence was the publication of the main body of material on Tiv custom before the work of the Bohannans, that is Downes’ The Tiv Tribe, Abraham’s The Tiv People, and Akiga Sai’s Akiga’s Story. 2 See the account of the Tiv (Munshi) in C.L. and O. Temple 1922. 3 Haakaa means “Throw things away,” Namakaa means “Give me things.” There is a vivid account of it in Akiga’s Story (East 1965: 275-289); see also Paul Bohannan 1958: 1-12. 4 E. g., the Ijôv movement of 1912. - It would seem that there were recurrent periods of tension between young men and elders in Tiv society, which culminated in widespread accusations of malicious use of tsav against the elders. While previous actions of the colonial administration (such as the suppression of exchange marriage) and ignorance of Tiv culture and language among administrative staff may have done much to intensify the crisis in Tiv society, I do not believe that the Haakaa movement was simply a response to colonial rule. Tiv society, even under colonial rule, had its own dynamic.

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