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The Significance of Cattle Exchanges in Lovedu Social Structure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

J. D. Krige
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The Louedu of the NE. Transvaal are patrilineal and marriage, which is patrilocal, involves (as it does among other S. Bantu tribes) the transfer of munywalo. This,institution has been variously interpreted as the legalization of the marriage, as a guarantee of a wife's status or good behaviour, and in terms of compensation, economic or ritual. But these interpretations are rather like parodies in which the emphasis on the features mentioned is not so much wrong as a caricature. We have, often complacently, projected our own values and motivations as universally valid. Much might be said in favour of such a caricature, if it is infused with the life of a character in Dickens, especially when the purpose has been to ennoble an institution which many regard as degrading. The kindly cartoon is better than the derogatory stereotype. It would, however, be better still if we could accommodate ourselves to a system in which the social arrangements are incommensurable with our own. More specifically, and that is the purpose of this article, we might try to discover the real place of munywalo in the social system. The manner in which we phrase the subject, that is, as the relation of the cattle exchanges to the social structure, is not meant to disguise our approach. It is intended to focus attention on the facts that cattle constitute the essence of munywalo, and that the exchanges of cattle involved are both the basis of important social arrangements and by far the most important use to which cattle are put in the society.

Résumé

LES ÉCHANGES DE BÉTAIL DANS L'ORGANISATION SOCIALE DES LOVEDU

Le but de cet article est de montrer l'importance dans l'organisation sociale des échanges qui interviennent à propos de la compensation matrimoniale (munywalo). Le bétail ne représente pas seulement de la richesse et les sentiments qu'il provoque ne s'expliquent point par des motifs religieux; en réalité il trouye son emploi avec le munywalo dans une proportion de 87 pour cent.

Munywalo et les échanges qu'il provoque ont une influence sociale très étendue. Ils créent en effet des liens de droits et d'obligations, entremêlés et compliqués, d'où résultent des situations complexes sur le plan social. Ces échanges ne sont pas d'ordre purement économique, ils ont un caractère particulier; c'est parce que nous tentons de les expliquer par des motifs seulement valables dans nos sociétés, qu'ils prennent à nos yeux une valeur économique.

Bien qu'en général le munywalo renforce les liens de parenté et confirme certains accords d'ordre social, il donne parfois naissance à des difficultés au sein de la société. Elles surgissent à cause d'incompatibilités entre les personnes ou par suite de libertés prises avec les institutions. Des procédés particuliers sont prévus pour surmonter ces difficultés, mais en général on fait appel aux qualités de caractère, au tact et aux compromis.

On a discuté la question de savoir si l'argent pouvait être substitué au bétail dans les échanges à propos du munywalo. En fait l'argent a déjà remplacé une partie du bétail pour des raisons particulières; il est possible qu'il le remplace davantage dans l'avenir, mais dans ce cas des changements interviendront dans les sociétés.

Les diverses théories qui ont tenté d'expliquer le munywalo sont examinées dans cet article à la lumière de la thèse qu'il expose, et, en définitive, il est montré que ces théories sont pour la plupart des déformations de la véritable fonction du munywalo.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 12 , Issue 4 , October 1939 , pp. 393 - 424
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1939

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References

page 393 note 1 Bride-price. In order to rid ourselves of vitiating associations it is advisable to avoid the use of such words and phrases as ‘bride-price’, ‘payment of bride-price’, and ‘bride-price cattle’. The word bride-price, with its two equated components in an economic setting, suggests a compensatory balance. Like a pair of blinkers of our own making, it renders us purblind to the form and substance of the institution. Even the word ‘lobola’, enmeshed as it is in a network of controversy which has been handled from the point of view of Western standards, is not suitable. It would, at this stage, be preferable to speak of the Bantu Kula, for this designation would at least violently re-orientate us, which is almost as necessary as the Melanesian phraseology is inappropriate. We therefore propose to do our thinking with such words as nywala, the act of acquiring a wife with bride-price, munywalo, the bride-price or the institution as a whole, and nywala-exchanges, the process of transferring bride-prices against brides. The Khilouedu word hu nywala means to marry a wife with the emphasis on the bride-price transfer; it is distinguished inter alia from huviga, to marry, where the aspect stressed is that a man has married according to certain ceremonial forms.

page 394 note 1 With special reference to the Louedu. But the same munywalo pattern was found among the twenty-six tribes of the Transvaal we visited north of a line running along the Olifants river westward through Pietersburg. There are variations, but only in detail, especially in the extreme NW. and SE. of this area, and among the intrusive Tonga who have not wholly accepted the pattern of the older inhabitants. But our treatment of the subject applies in detail to at least all the Lowveld Sotho tribes, and our broad generalkations are not true only of the Louedu. There is nothing in the munywalo pattern which can be said to be characteristically Louedu. Our evidence is derived mainly from attending court cases at the Louedu capital throughout a period of over twelve months and taking careful notes of every case. On a few occasions towards the end of this period, when pressed by headmen who were our personal friends, we ourselves sat as judge, because, as a chief councillor said, we had ‘drunk the soup of the law’.

page 396 note 1 The data from which these percentages have been calculated can hardly be given here. We have considered all purchases with money, including the payment of taxes, all exchanges of maize and other agricultural products against one another, and other commodities and services, and the other miscellaneous exchanges of whatever nature, such as gift exchanges, payments made to doctors, or for services, or as legal fees, or for handicrafts, &c, in goats, fowls, salt, meat, and so on. These we have contrasted with the nywala-exchanges. In bringing them all to a common denominator we have been guided by equivalences in the society which we have expressed in £.s.d.

page 396 note 2 Only slight indications can be given of the evidence for these statements and the calculations based on that evidence. The marriage rate was calculated from vital statistics in two areas each with a population just short of 1,000. It was found to be a few points more than 10 per 1,000 per annum. Hence for 33,000, at a conservative estimate, there must be 33,000 × 10/1,000, or at least 330 marriages per year. The average munywalo was calculated from facts elicited in 50 law suits. This average corresponds very closely to that obtained by us from personal friends who were prepared to disclose full details of the munywalo they had given or received. It tallies, moreover, almost exactly with the socially approved amount of munywalo, which is determined less by personal considerations than by the defined function of each item of the munywalo; this amount is 8 cattle, 8 goats, £10, and various odds and ends. The variation from the average is in respect of the relative proportions of cattle, goats and cash rather than in the total value; there is no correlation with the rank or the wealth of either of the parties. The 8 cattle are not given simultaneously but on an average over a period of 4 years. There are thus 330 × 4 = 1,320 munywalo exchanges annually and the average number of cattle involved in each year's exchanges is 1,320 × 8/4 = 2,640. Not more than 10 per cent, of these cattle—this is little more than a guess—become re-exchanged in the same year, so that the absolute minimum needed to sustain the exchanges is not less than 2,640—264 = 2,376. But this figure must be increased because the velocity of circulation is, if possible, retarded and because more cows than oxen are required by the pattern of the exchanges and are often insisted upon; hence, for what it is worth, our figure of 2,600 as the number of cattle in continuous circulation.

page 398 note 1 It should be emphasized that there is considerable circumvention of munywalo obligations. A man has a strong interest to use the cattle as if they were his own and does so quite often.

page 398 note 1 We shall also call any other relatives cattle-linked, if they are specially joined by the nywala-exchanges. The Khilouedu terminology is not denotative but descriptive, and the circumlocution is too clumsy for use in English. The cattle-linked sister is thus ‘the sister whose cattle have built a house at her brother's’; her cattle-linked brother refers to her also as the ‘sister who has a gate’ and the cattle he used are spoken of as ‘the cattle which seek a gate’, these descriptions implying that the sister may enter that house of her brother which her cattle have built and take his daughter as a wife for her son. The wife of a cattle-linked brother is the sister's muvuyi or cattle-linked sister-in-law. We may regard the cattle-linked brother-sister relationship as primary, as the Louedu tend to do, and e.g. speak of the mother's cattle-linked brother (i.e. that brother of one's mother who nywala'd with her cattle), but it will suffice for our purposes to call him the cattle-linked uncle and to use the phrases cattle-linked aunt and cattle-linked cross-cousin as meaning respectively that sister of one's father with whose cattle he nywala'd and the daughter of the cattle-linked uncle (man speaking) or the son of the cattle-linked aunt (woman speaking).

page 399 note 1 In an exclusive group such as the royal family, the chain would be linked back to A's direct descendants, perhaps already at C or E who nywala's A's daughter. But, generally speaking, groups are not closed by any high barriers, so that the chain is only seldom deliberately linked back.

page 400 note 1 The superiority of the man's right is not to be explained as the consequence of masculine emphasis, for it is primarily the mother who demands the right. It may be accounted for by other social values such as the necessity to preserve a man's line and the presumed scarcity of suitable wives.

page 401 note 1 Thus each cattle-linked lineage is cattle-obligated as well as cattle-entitled; it is bride-receiving as well as bride-giving. But it is cattle-obligated (bride-receiving) to one lineage and cattle-entitled (bride-giving) in respect of another, and these cattle (or bride) relations between these lineages cannot be reversed.

page 401 note 2 For this reason a man surreptitiously ‘watches how his cattle calve’, wherever they might be. If he really goes as far as to enforce his rights against F, the con-sequences to the intervening marriages Bb, Cc and Ee might be disastrous, and he is said to ‘spoil the whole country’.

page 403 note 1 This reluctance is a result of culture contact which emphasizes independence and materialism at the price of the patterns of reciprocity and co-operation.

page 403 note 2 But the Erewhonian might get nearer the truth than we do, if he went to Uulouedu and regarded munywalo as moral currency ‘stamped with designs that were often of great beauty’ and of which ‘all those who wished to be considered respectable thought it incumbent upon them to retain a few coins in their possession…’ even though their commercial value was nil.

page 404 note 1 Note how these arrangements are patterned upon the configuration of cattle-linked lineages. The cattle-linked brother's lineage is, of course, the cattle-entitled lineage; the lineage of the husband of the cattle-linked sister is cattle-obligated.

page 409 note 1 Mmamorivula is said to mean sometimes ‘one who uncovers things’, some-times ‘one who opens the house’ of the deceased. The death is reported by saying the ‘house has fallen’. The mmamorivula, by opening the hut, restores it. The munywalo given for a ‘follower’ or a ‘restorer’ is sometimes said to be less than usual, sometimes the same. In practice corresponding variations occur. What is stressed or material is not the fact that it is a second ‘payment’ to set up a house already ‘paid’ for, but the nature of the relationship between the families. If it is very good, less may be, but is not necessarily, asked for in respect of these cases.

page 410 note 1 That is, ‘give you a girl in marriage’.

page 410 note 2 Tabana, to wash one another, to deny relationship with one another. Tabana gives the idea of washing away the contagium of intimate mutual relations.

page 411 note 1 The totality of social arrangements strongly conditions motivation to support munywalo bonds and obligations. But, as in our society, the conditioning can never be perfect or, what from the point of view of maladjustment comes to the same thing, the different conditioning mechanisms do not always harmonize, and the result is that motives for evading rules or disregarding obligations often enough come into play.

page 411 note 2 Bonds created by munywalo easily enough explain why the preferred marriage is with the cattle-linked cross-cousin, not any cross-cousin. But why are the obligations of two such cross-cousins, ‘born for one another’, not exactly complementary? The girl's obligation is much more insisted upon; if she fulfils it, she is rewarded, if she evades it, she places her mother's marriage or property in jeopardy. No such inducements or penalties attach to the boy's obligation; he may be praised or he may have to face his parents' anger, but there are no legal con-sequences. Is the emphasis on masculine rights a sufficient explanation ? Possibly; but in the munywalo complex the rights of women are at least as important as those of men, though in regard to marriage the usual rationalization is that, as a man ‘spoils many things’ to acquire a wife, while his wife does not, he has superior marital privileges. Does the reason not lie in polygyny, as a result of which there is a presumed shortage of marriageable women? According to sample censuses we have taken, 35 per cent, of the men have more than one wife, while there are 156 married women to 100 married men. Theoretically, as the average ratio of women's married life to men's is about 3 to 2 and the ratio of females to males 11 to 10, there should be 3/2×11/10× 100 = 165 married women available for every 100 married men, and hence there is no actual scarcity of women. (We may ignore complications due to Christian marriages, there being only 3 per cent. Christians in the total population.) But abundance of women does not mean abundance of preferred mates nor eliminate competition among men for women. The obligation of the female cattle-linked cross-cousin ensures, amid the com-petition stimulated by polygyny, that faint heart shall win fair lady; but it also provokes resistances in the lady and strains the stability of the union.

page 412 note 1 There were no cases of suicide by unwilling brides during our stay among the Louedu. Among the cases of suicide, however, one was of a young wife, deeply mortified by her husband's accusation that she had committed adultery with a man who had married her sister. The suicide rate is, as far as we can gather, low, probably not more than one every two or three years, i.e. i.e to 1·5 per 100,000.

page 413 note 1 The marriages to-day that are least stable are those between preferred mates. The girl decamps with a lover, regardless of the consequences and without much real fear of subsequent coercion. The tribal court almost invariably orders her back to her husband. If she refuses to comply, it may try to humiliate her by scolding and imposing upon her some work, which is a humiliation rather than a hardship. These measures usually cause her to submit but the submission is assumed, not genuine; if she remains obdurate, the ire of the court is vented on the presumptuous suitor; and if he has no cattle he is scornfully asked how he dared ‘love another's wife when he has no cattle’. Whatever the result in court, the guilty parties usually manage later to live together or marry, knowing that in present circumstances the ‘law of the land has no power’.

page 414 note 1 This next heir will be the son of the deceased's cattle-linked cross-cousin. Even though the husband for whom this cross-cousin ‘was born’ had died in infancy or before she had come into existence, she must still be the seed-bearer, that is the mother of the next heir.

page 415 note 1 The reason given is that ‘two sisters cannot eat one another's property’. If they do, that is, if the one hands over cattle coming in by her daughter to the other for her son to nywala with, incongruities result. The cattle come from the lineage of the one sister's husband, to which brides in future have to go, and go to the lineage of the other sister's husband from which brides have in future to come, as previously explained. These two lineages may be the same, as when both sisters marry into the same lineage, or they may be different; hence either the same lineage becomes bride-giving and bride-receiving in respect of itself, or new linkages are created which strain those established in previous generations; and in both cases some fundamental rule is infringed. In the same way, the rule that brides should come from the direction that the cattle go or, in other words, the cattle should come from the direction that brides go, appears to be at the basis of the approval or disapproval of the solutions to the difficulties of allocation. It is possible that this rule explains or conditions some aspects of inter-house relations (e.g. munywalo inter-house debts mentioned in the next footnote) as well as of polygyny. But we cannot go into the matter here.

page 416 note 1 I do not know whether such an arrangement produces any strains among the Nguni. Possibly not, or at least not to the same extent; for it creates inter-house debts. But among the Louedu this does not happen; the debt, if it is such, must be repaid by a daughter for whom munywalo is once more given. In reality, there-fore, what is created is not a repayable debt but social relations, bonds of rights and obligations, which are looked upon as undesirable from the point of view of the independence of the houses. The result is that not only is much doubt expressed as to whether a father can legally make such an allocation, but if he does, without the concurrence of his wives, he is courting trouble.

page 418 note 1 The Louedu, like many surrounding Sotho tribes, are regarded by Europeans as cunning liars, lacking the more intelligible qualities of the Tonga who are their neighbours. The reaction to Europeans is never open opposition but subterfuge and, because compromise fails to function as in their own society, distrust and irreconcilable suspicion.

page 420 note 1 There was great scarcity of cattle during the periods 1860-70, 1894-8, and 1910-14, owing to famines, raids or epidemics. But since 1911 there has been a steady increase. The evidence is too meagre to relate these shortages with repercussions in the social structure.

page 421 note 1 The dzwezi ja mušeni is awarded to the mother but not unencumbered, as she is bound to use it for munywalo.

page 421 note 2 Such as the thari, which provides a feast for the two families, the khišavo, which is killed for the bridal party, and the khibulao, which was a sacrifice to the ancestors.

page 423 note 1 These marriages are very common, at least 200 in the reign of every Queen, and they link the Queen with every important headman as well as with all the nobles. The main reason for handing them over is political and diplomatic, but there are many other reasons such as the poverty of a man, his outstanding services, and the creation of nationwide links with the throne.