Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T16:31:06.422Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Anuak Village Headmen1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

Godfrey Lienhardt
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The specific form and function of many Anuak customs connected with competition and prestige, some of which I briefly described in the first part of this study, are to be interpreted in relation to the political structure of Anuak villages; and this I now describe, first in general outline, and later in more detail with reference to a particular village

Résumé

LES CHEFS DE VILLAGE ANUAK: (II) LA STRUCTURE DU VILLAGE ET LA RÉVOLTE

Le village d'un chef comprend plusieurs lignées localisées (dont les plus importantes sont nommées des ‘sous-clans’ dans cet article) des 14 clans non nobles de l'Anuakland. Dans chaque village il y a un sous-clan dominant et c'est seulement parmi les membres de ce sous-clan que le chef peut être choisi. Les autres sous-clans et les petites lignées sont les ‘invités’. Dans le pays des Anuak, les ‘invités’ sont fortement privilégiés et les chefs leur font bon accueil, car ils augmentent le prestige du village et de son chef.

Le chef est désigné par le village, qui est représenté par la lignée la plus ancienne du sous-clan dominant. Seuls, les membres de ce sous-clan, dont les pères biologiques ont été chefs, ont le droit d'accéder aux fonctions de chef; par conséquent, le sous-clan, à la longue, se compose des lignées qui, descendant de fils de chefs qui n'ont pas été installés comme chef avant leur mort, sont, en tant que lignées entières, inéligibles pour fournir le chef. Ce sont ces lignées, dont le rang à été ainsi réduit, qui, collectivement, constituent la plus ancienne des lignées sans l'assentiment de laquelle aucun chef ne peut être désigné. Lorsque la lignée la plus ancienne est désunie à cause des diverses lignées ‘invitées’ du village, on fait des démarches afin de remplacer le chef. Ce changement s'effectue parfois amicalement lorsque la lignée la plus ancienne peut arriver à un accord, et quelquefois par la force. Dans ce dernier cas, il se peut que la faction vaincue soit obligée de quitter le village et d'habiter comme ‘invitée’ ailleurs, soit provisoirement, soit définitivement. L'article traite de la portée de ce système et se termine, à titre d'exemple, par un exposé de l'arrière-plan politique d'un cas particulier de remplacement de chef.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , January 1958 , pp. 23 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1958

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 23 note 2 These 14 clans consist of 13 commoner clans, and the Jowatong, who are branches of the noble clan which have lost the right to provide candidates for investiture as nobles. See Evans-Pritchard, E. E., ‘Further Observations on the Political System of the Anuak’, Sudan Notes and Records, xxviii, 1947, p. 89.Google Scholar

page 24 note 1 In some cases, owing to historical vicissitudes not here discussed, two different subclans may be dominant in the same village, which then consists of two communities each with its own headman.

page 25 note 1 Examined more fully in my papet ‘Nilotic Kings and their Mothers' Kin’, Africa, xxv. I, 1955, pp. 29–41.

page 25 note 2 Which is also marked in many details of Anuak custom and belief and may be seen to be consistent with the absence of wide-scale lineage structure later discussed.

page 25 note 3 The use of these two terms,‘senior’ and ‘reigning’, or some similar terms, may be useful for discussion of the structure of the noble clan of the Anuak and royal clan of the Shilluk also.

page 26 note 1 See, for example, Evans-Pritchard, op. cit., pp. 92–93.

page 26 note 2 The attitude of the Anuak in this matter may be illustrated by the comment of a literate Anuak who had heard much of the disagreements between Russia and America: ‘Why doesn't one of them just go away by itself and leave the other altogether?’

page 27 note 1 The word is not easy to investigate, and I say ‘usually’ because I came across an instance of two agnatically unrelated lineages which were spoken of as athare. This may be more common than I was able to establish.

page 28 note 1 I am thinking of course of such a system as that of the Nuer, whose difference from their Anuak neighbours in this respect is very striking, and could form the basis for a consistent comparative study of many features of custom also.

page 28 note 2 See also the discussion of favouritism which follows.

page 28 note 3 So, when a headman is dismissed and begins, so to speak, to resume the position of an individual and not of his office, he may try to regain some of the gifts which he made in return for support. One headman, when he was dismissed, sued in the chief's court in Akobo for the return of a cow which he had previously given to his representative (nyikugu); and the headman whose affairs I later examine more closely claimed that a bugle was his own property and not (as he had previously allowed to appear) that of his office.

page 29 note 1 In contrast with the Dinka and Nuer, for example, whose system of inheritance is different from that of the Anuak.

page 29 note 2 An Anuak comment on this is: ‘the favourite son will catch a fish and wrap it in leaves when he has cooked it, and take it to his father, who will be pleased and say “why, I am treated like a headman”.’

page 30 note 1 This is called obutha and distinguished from kwor which is the negotiated payment of compensation. Strictly speaking, kwor means ‘homicide with compensation’.

page 30 note 2 In fact, homicide may not be very frequent in Anuak villages where headmen reign. Out of 99 assorted cases brought before the Akobo District Court between 1947 and 1953, only one was a case of homicide, though of course some cases were probably not brought to court. The first administrator of the Anuak, Col. Bacon, commented upon the relative orderliness of Anuak social life. There can be no doubt, however, that homicide has been very frequent in the country of the nobles.

page 30 note 3 In some villages, a very placid and unexciting Murle dance, the kuruma, is held by the young people for evening entertainment. It is regarded rather as a play than as a dance.

page 31 note 1 When a headman had refused to release the drums for some young men who wanted to dance, I asked them why they did not acquire their own drums and dance whenever they wanted. The reply was: ‘Ordinary people can't own drums! What would they do with them, and who would control a fight if it broke out at their dance?’

page 31 note 2 Africa, xxvii. 4, 1957, p. 352.

page 32 note 1 The recent changes of Government in the Sudan were interpreted as part of a vast village rebellion, and even officials who are transferred or promoted are thought to have been pushed out of office by some official version of the agem.

page 32 note 2 It can happen that only one candidate for headmanship is available, in which case of course he cannot be ostracized. This has happened in the village of Uthil, where the reigning headman, partly through his personal qualities, is perhaps the most powerful of the headmen of the Sudan Anuak.

page 32 note 3 Other examples appear in Evans-Pritchard, E. E., The Political System of the Anuak, 1940, pp. 141–6.Google Scholar

page 33 note 1 It appears that the closest collateral of the reigning lineage—that which has most recently lost its eligibility for headmanship—keeps the regalia of headmanship and plays the most prominent part in installing and dismissing headmen, but my information is not sufficient for certain generalization.