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The Age-Set System of the Pastoral Pokot: Mechanism, Function and Post-Sapana Ceremonies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

J. G. Peristiany
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Extract

The following features of the sapana initiation ceremony were isolated in my first article.

(1) This ceremony is held towards the end of the rainy season as often as there are candidates for initiation; (2) each candidate is, usually, initiated separately; and (3) the immediate effect of this ceremony is not so much to integrate the initiate into a new corporate group, as to permit him to participate in some of the activities of manhood.

The initiated are divided into various ranks of seniority, and passage from the lower to the immediately higher rank is the result of a specific initiation ceremony. The main difference between such a ceremony and that of sapana is that sapana admits initiates to manhood individually whereas the ceremonies which follow it raise a whole group of initiated men through a series of progressively senior age-ranks. They function, that is, as parts of a true age-set mechanism. The moment a man enters one of these strata, his vertical age-mobility is conditioned by their movements, and individual transition is no longer possible.

Résumé

LES CLASSES D'ÂGE DES POKOT PASTORAUX

Après la description de la cérémonie de sapana (Africa, xxi. 3, 1951, pp. 188-207) l'auteur examine ici le mécanisme des classes d'âge Pokot. La cérémonie de sapana intègre l'adolescent à la section adulte de la société. Les cérémonies ultérieures, dont le symbolisme et les fonctions sont également analysés, valident l'extension du rayon d'action sociale de l'initié. A la fin de chaque rite une classe d'âge entière reçoit une nouvelle investiture et se trouve absorbée par une classe encore plus vaste. A chacune de ces classes correspond une série d'obligations et de privilèges sociaux dont la gradation est établie d'après son degré d'ancienneté. La société pastorale, à laquelle une structure territoriale ou de lignage fait défaut, est ainsi divisée en une hiérarchie de classes d'âge, qui lui sert d'armature politique.

Dans la dernière partie de cet article l'auteur procède à un examen critique du mécanisme de ce système. Les Pokot ont deux grandes classes d'âge et les fils sont incorporés dans la classe opposée à celle du père. Les complexités de ce système cyclique sont grandes mais pourraient être résolues en introduisant une troisième classe d'âge ou bien en réduisant ce système cyclique en simple système linéaire.

Pour conclure l'auteur souligne l'importance inter-tribale de ce système. La célébration des grands rites de passage est marquée par la paix inter-tribale et l'adoption de ces classes par les tribus avoisinantes a diminué la distance sociale entre leurs membres dont le rang d'âge se trouve ainsi reconnu en territoire limitrophe. Ces deux faits pourraient être appelés à poser les bases pour une véritable amphictyonie entre ces tribus guerrières.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , October 1951 , pp. 279 - 302
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1951

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References

page 279 note 1 Africa, xxi, July 1951. I would like to thank Professor Evans-Pritchard, Mr. John Beattie, and Dr. Franz Steiner for their observations on the first article and Mr. Godfrey Lienhardt for his comments on the present one.

page 279 note 2 September to November. This period may be extended when there is a plentiful supply of milk.

page 280 note 1 See p. 294.

page 280 note 2 See ‘Giraffe’, note 7, p. 294.

page 280 note 3 Nyeru and Nyangadung, p. 294.

page 280 note 4 The minimum duration of the sub-set is one year and its average term over the past fifty years was four years.

page 281 note 1 The Kipsigis are great believers in the idea of ‘spreading the risks’. Not only do they attempt to decentralize their family by establishing their wives i n different villages, but theyalso distribute their cattle among friends residing both in Kipsigiland and in the territory of other tribes. Following the same principle, they sometimes have their new-born sons adopted into a regiment other than their own so that they may escape the death which overtook their elder sons in the battlefield or through illness. See my Social Institutions of the Kipsigis, pp. 150, 163.

page 282 note 1 I have met in the western hills two men, one a Nyetapa and the other a Bitiro, who claim to have performed the ceremony of the colours, but I have been unable to substantiate their account by additional evidence and I have some grounds for believing that their boast was due to the desire to consolidate an already prominent social position.

page 283 note 1 More seldom, nowadays, they refer to some decoration specific to this colour section. Barton (op. cit., p. 87) gives a corresponding ‘totem’ for each circumcision set. In reality, these ‘totems’ correspond either to sub-set nicknames or to the decorations of the colour sections. A table of concordances is given on p. 296.

page 283 note 2 The observations on which this description is based were made in 1947.

page 283 note 3 Emley, E. D., ‘The Turkana of Kolosia District’, J.R.A.I, lvii. 166Google Scholar: ‘The name “atha-panitha” is merely the plural form of athapana (decoration).’ The Turkana, according to Emley, have two athapanitha, the Imuru and the Iritha, the Rocks (or Stones) and the Leopards.

page 283 note 4 Taken as a topographical unit with a faint ritual and political personality.

page 284 note 1 Friends belonging to a clan with which past inter-marriages have proved fruitful. Elders sometimes insist on entering into these relations only with the specific ‘lineage’ with which marriage has proved auspicious, but nowadays young men are not so exacting, and they frequently use the expression kapkoyogh to denote clans with one segment which they are already related through this bond ctilya = kinship).

page 284 note 2 The spearing of the oxen and the abandoning of the carcasses is also the method of introducing a judicial procedure. ‘Why should the elders come together and talk about our cases unless there is enough to eat?’ is a familiar saying among the Pokot.

page 284 note 3 It is seldom that more than three colour sections have numerous living representatives at any moment in time. See p. 290.

page 285 note 1 Among the western and central hill people these sites appear to be so situated that they serve as centres for men living within relatively easy walking reach of them. Between two points one to two days’ march from each other there are four huts of colour (Kotoruk, Sila, near Lounow, Kopalem, near Chebereria and Kopokogh). The ko po munian, the hut of colours at Sila, is guarded by Rionolem, that of Kopalem by Ngolengor and that of Koteruk by Pepe. The ‘hut of the colours’ of Kopokogh was erected by Aripomoi, a member of the Merkutwa circumcision set (c. 1886-96), which is said to have introduced the sapana age-system. The ending -moi, which denotes that he has killed an enemy in battle, is of Karamojong and Turkana origin. The hut of Kotoruk was erected by Longor, a Merkutwa and a Zebra. He was the father of the present custodian, Pepe, a junior Maina and a Rock.

Among the western pastoralists of the Suam only one hut of colours is known and this has now rotted through lack of care. The fact that these western pastoralists appear to have only one sacred centre associated with this ceremony seems to indicate that this served a much more widely dispersed territorial section. This, of course, is in keeping with the idea that munian must be attended by a very numerous company, which, in turn, is determined by the density of population. This varies for the hill people: between 8 per square mile for Seker to 12 for Cheptulel and Mwina, and over 21 for Mnagei. It is under 7 for the western location of Riwa and much less for the pastoralists living west of the Turkwel (Suam) river. I also put forward in the closing paragraphs of this paper a personal hypothesis concerning the social range of the ceremony of the colours and that of the sacred right hind leg of the ox.

page 286 note 1 See p. 298.

page 286 note 2 By offering the right piece of meat and the right calabash of beer one pays homage to a man's age-rank. To slight an elder by giving him a smaller calabash or a less choice morsel than his age-rank is entitled to may bring about collective retribution in the form of ceremonial whipping inflicted by the seniors on the members of the culprit's sub-set. One of the favourite stories of the elders concerns a man who was offered a smaller calabash of beer than his age-set entitled him to. He turned out to be a great witchdoctor who visited his anger on a large section of the tribe, which he eventually contrived to wipe out.

page 286 note 3 See p. 287.

page 287 note 1 Or its present-day equivalent, the latest circumcision set to have been admitted to the kerket halfcircle.

page 289 note 1 It does, though, receive public recognition during the granting of the colours when the different colour sections sit separately. Today, when the ceremony of the colours is no longer performed, the major cleavage is between those who sit inside the kerket half-circle and those who sit outside it. Those who sit outside are members of the colour section under formation. Present-day elders act and speak as though preparing for the ceremony of the colours to take place, and its ritual as well as its social importance are explained to the young men. This is the main reason for my using the present tense when speaking of this ceremony. The non-performance of the colour ceremony has brought closer than ever the sapana and the circumcision cycles. Those now sitting opposite the kerket half-circle, turning their backs on M'telo, the sacred mountain, are the members of the Kerongoro circumcision-set. It would be interesting to know whether they will move into the kerket half-circle as soon as the members of the following circumcision set (Kipkoymet) emerge from their circumcision huts.

page 290 note 1 To which I shall henceforward refer as brass and copper ornaments.

page 290 note 2 See Table IV, p. 293.

page 291 note 1 He is a member of the Chuma circumcision set.

page 292 note 1 See p. 296.

page 294 note 1 See note 13, p. 295.

page 295 note 1 Many inhabitants of the western lowlands are not in a position to give the correct sapana-set of their fathers and when asked about the sapana-set of their grandfathers they try to make it conform to what they believe is the ideal pattern. The high territorial mobility and the low density of population among the pastoralists are such that agnatic kingroups wider than the polygynous family are widely dispersed.

page 296 note 1 These exceptions arise from the very mechanism of the system and are explained on p. 291.

page 297 note 1 Beech estimates the duration of each circumcision set at fifteen years. His book, published in 1911, refers to the Maina as ‘the age of those most recently circumcised’(op. cit., p. 6), and his reference to the ‘Nimur’ as the juniors of each circumcision set is evidence both of the approximate closing date of Maina as well as of the approximate date of the beginning of Nyitnur. Barton (op. cit., p. 87) writes that those circumcised in 1918 and 1919 were Chuma. My evidence shows that the Kerongoro opened their period of recruitment in 1936. All estimates concerning the period of recruitment of Pokot circumcision sets are approximations and there are frequent disagreements between Pokot provinces on whether to open or close the period of recruitment of a circumcision set.

page 297 note 2 Wayland, J.R.A.I., lxi, 1931, p. 211, gives ‘leg’ as the meaning of the Karamojong word amurro. This seems unlikely as the western pastoral Pokot use two Karamojong words to distinguish between the left (apsikit) and the right hind leg of the ox (amuro), when used in a kerket.

page 298 note 1 Especially during periods of drought when neighbouring pastoral tribes use the same water-holes.

page 299 note 1 The amuro is divided into the losopich, that is the has outer part which may be eaten by any person who made sapana, and the angorrere, the inner reserved for those who are entitled to cut the amuro.

page 299 note 2 This does not mean that the two tribes do not raid each other but only that social intercourse is closer than if they did not have this important institution in common.

page 299 note 3 See my previous article, Africa, xxi, 3, July 1951, p. 195.