Anthropos: Anthropos, 86.1991,1/6

Anthropos, 86.1991,1/6

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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:11-711879

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711879

Persistenter Identifier:: 1513674362149

Titel:: Anthropos, 86.1991,1/6

Erscheinungsjahr:: 1991

Signatur:: LA 1118

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenheft

Titel:: Bd. 86, 1991, Heft 1-3

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Anthropos 86.1991; 1-18 Small Bands of Strangers The Contraposed “Lineage” Reconsidered T. R. Barker Abstract. - This article intends to approach the question of political structure in particular as it throws light on Tail’s contrapuntal clans. The transformation of acephalous societies into “state societies” is largely credited to the introduction of heterogeneity on the basis of migration, conquest, and the development of trade. The significance of territoriality, gene alogy, and ritual is examined in various formulations of polity. Using Tait’s Konkomba material it is proposed that the contra puntal clan may be seen as the locus of both partibility of the social person and the estate. The division of a population into a classic autochthon/conqueror form typical of many African societies occurs as a result of disjunction in the processes of devolution and succession to office however contrapuntality is a necessary condition. [Ghana, Konkomba, state!non-state, earth priest, intra- and inter systemic variation, contrapuntal clan] Thomas R. Barker, Dr., has taught Social Anthropology at the Univ. of Toronto; he has done anthropological research in Papua New Guinea and worked in development projects in West and Southern Africa; he has conducted a re-study of the Wawaga valley Barai in Papua New Guinea. Introduction As Coquery-Vidrovitch demanded, the surpassing oi the state/stateless dichotomy of social anthro pology (1978: 278), the attempt to construct an African mode based on patrimony and the perma nence and control of long distance trade, happily or unhappily, could not eliminate it. Social structure and social organization remain as over-arching considerations in social anthropology. The popu lar, recent trend of non-anthropologists in the area, has been to confine questions of social structure 1 to the mytho-historic period of the political for mation. As much as this rings true to a certain logic, it is uncomfortably reminiscent of Frazer’s difficulties with Robertson Smith (1894). It is in the context of this “struggle” that the institution “chiefs of the earth (tengsoha)” (Frazer 1919: 85-87) appeared to the English public. In cluded was one of the mechanisms of incorpo ration, the grandchild/sister’s son’s relationship, or yagense (ka-yeagense). 2 Then, of course, there 1 Somewhat pedantically, in the view of the functionalists, social structure is the framework of institutionally defined relations between people where social organization refers to the form of activities, social position or status is viewed against rules of conduct, structure against organization. Finally, process is the interrelation of the two. Fortes (1953: 22) draws attention to the “interconnection and interdepen dence, within a single system, of all the different classes of social relations found within a given society.” Tait’s charac terization of social structure is derivative of the foregoing, however, it is complicated by his recourse to ecology: “The social structure of a society is, in part, a function of its ecology. ... Land shortage and lineage fission in this environment appear severely to restrict aggregations of people and to produce a small-scale segmentary society” (Goody 1961: 156). This reflects Forde’s theory that qual ity of habitat and technology restricts the development of unilineal descent groups (1947: 213-224). 2 In the matter of the terminology employed to navigate about central themes and principles, “master of the earth” and “owner of the people,” “owner’s people,” and “owner of the earth’s people” will be used. Other variations of these phrases will be employed from time to time to convey a change in the sense of the discussion. Goody (1961: xvi) noted the following: “... I have substituted the phrase ‘Earth Shrine’ for ‘Land Shrine.’ Perhaps inconsistently, 1 have not replaced Owner of the Land by Custodian of the Earth Shrine but by Owner of the Earth. This I have done because I did not want to depart too radically from David Tait’s previous usage, as it might have led some readers to think that two different offices were being spoken of. Secondly, the phrase which Fortes and I have employed is certainly rather cumbrous for continual usage, and thirdly, the Konkomba word, like the Nankanse and Ashanti cog nates but unlike the LoDagaa, does not contain any specific reference to the shrine but only to the Earth. ‘Owner of the Earth’ is better than ‘Owner of the Land’ for it emphasizes that the office is essentially a religious one. ‘Earth priest,’ or the ‘Master of the Earth’ of the French ethnographers, would in some ways have been still more appropriate, for they avoid the possible error of suggesting that the office has anything to do with the ownership of the land in the usual sense of the phrase. On the other hand, Rattray’s ‘Chief-Priest’ or ‘King-Priest’ seem to me unacceptable in that they imply another sort of political functionary; indeed these terms clearly represent a momentary glimpse of the Golden Bough in the orchard bush of the West African Savannah.” In the formulation of the process of clan/lineage constitution, it is noted that, mechanistically, there would seem to be little difference between the complex of the Nuer dil or aristocrat/leopard-skin chief and the “owner of

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