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The Significance of Traditional Yoruba Urbanism *

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Paul Wheatley
Paul Wheatley
Affiliation:
University College London
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Extract

The traditional Yoruba city has proved a refractory concept in the otherwise ordered universe of urban enquiry. Most students of Yoruba culture have felt obliged to treat the permanent and compact aggregations of population which were, and are, characteristic of south-western Nigeria as urban forms while yet recognizing that they differ in important respects both from the present-day industrial and commercial city of the West and from the several genres of city occurring elsewhere in the traditional world. Among the first to attempt to assign a precise status to these settlements was Professor William Bascom. Measuring them against the yardstick of Louis Wirth' minimal definition of a city as ‘a relatively large, dense, and permanent settlement of socially heterogeneous individuals,’ he concluded that the urban status of the larger Yoruba settlements was in doubt only in respect of the last of these criteria, namely heterogeneity.

Type
Urban and Non-urban Tradition (Africa)
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 12 , Issue 4 , October 1970 , pp. 393 - 423
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1970

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References

1 In this paper the term city is used generically to denote any urban form, and carries none of the ancillary connotations of size, status, or origin implicit in contemporary everyday American or English usage. Urbanism is used to denote that particular set of functionally integrated institutions which were first devised some 5,000 years ago to mediate the transforma tion of relatively egalitarian, ascriptive, kin-structured groups into socially stratified, politically organized, territorially based societies, and which have since progressively extended the scope and autonomy of their institutional spheres so that today they mould the actions and aspirations of vastly the larger proportion of mankind. Urbanization refers to the ratio of city dwellers to total population.

2 Wirth, Louis, ‘Urbanism as a way of life’, The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 44 (1938), 8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Reprinted in Marvick, Elizabeth Wirth and Reiss, Albert J. Jr., eds., Community life and social policy (University of Chicago Press, 1956), pp. 110–32,Google Scholar and in Reiss, Albert J. Jr., , ed., Louis Wirth. On cities and social life (Phoenix Book No. 172, University of Chicago Press, 1964), pp. 60–83.Google Scholar

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20 Of course kin-based groups generate and distribute power even in the most complex of present-day industrialized societies but they operate on a predominantly informal plane and are of a peripheral, or at best supplementary, character. For comments on this theme see Wolf, Eric R., ‘Kinship, friendship, and patron-client relations in complex societies’, in Banton, Michael, ed., The social anthropology of complex societies (London: Tavistock Publications Ltd., 1966), pp. 1–22.Google Scholar

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23 There are indications that the designation Yoruba originally denoted only the Qyp people, other speakers of the same language referring to themselves by tribal names such as Egba, Ijebu, Ijesa and so forth. In this paper the term Yoruba will be used, as is customary at the present time, to denote all the Yoruba-speaking peoples.

24 A succinct summary of the relatively meagre archaeological information available for the Yoruba territories is contained, together with a comprehensive bibliography, in Willett, Frank, Ife in the history of West African sculpture (London: Thames & Hudson, 1967).Google Scholar

25 A great deal of material of this nature has been incorporated in Johnson, Samuel (edited by Johnson, O.), The history of the Yorubas from the earliest times to the beginning of the British Protectorate (Lagos: C.M.S. Bookshops, 1921:Google Scholar reprinted 1937 and 1956; and London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1957, 1960, 1966). Cf also Beier, H. Ulli, ‘The historical and psychological significance of Yoruba myths’, Odù, Vol. 1 (1954), 17–25,Google Scholar and Lloyd, Peter C., ‘Yoruba myths: a sociologist's interpretation’, Odù, Vol. 2 (1955), 20–8.Google Scholar The official hereditary transmitters, preservers and codifiers of Yoruba dynastic traditions were certain families attached to the afin of the Alafin of Qyo, who included among their duties the responsibilities of bards and musicians.

26 Bascom, W., ‘Les premiers fondements historiques de l'urbanisme yorouba’, Présence Africaine, new series, No. 23 (1958-1959), 22–40.Google Scholar

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33 Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville, map of Africa dated 1743 and reproduced in Foa, E., Le Dahomey (Paris: A. Hennuyer, 1895), p. 10.Google Scholar On this map d'Anville corrected the error he had made on his map of 1729 of locating the Oyo to the north-west of Dahomey (cf. Labat, , Voyage, Vol. I, p. 1).Google Scholar

34 Talbot, P. Amaury, The peoples of Southern Nigeria, Vol. 1 (London: Oxford University Press, 1924), p. 218. The use of the term ciudade in this context is important as explicitly confirming that the author regarded the settlement in question as an urban form.Google Scholar

35 Pereira, Duarte Pacheco, Esmeralda de situ orbis. Translated and edited by Kimble, G. H. T. (Hakluyt Society, second series, Vol. LXXIX, London, 1937: written in two parts in 1505 and 1507/8; first published in 1892), p. 124. Kimble's identification of Geebuu with Abeokuta must be rejected on the grounds, among others, that the latter city was not founded until the nineteenth century.Google Scholar

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38 A form which appears on a Portuguese map printed in Amsterdam in 1700 and cited by Talbot, , The peoples of Southern Nigeria, Vol. 1, p. 219.Google Scholar

39 Barbot, J., A description of the coasts of North and South Guinea (no imprimatur, London, 1732), p. 354.Google Scholar

40 On d'Anville's map of 1729: cf. Note 33 above.

41 On d'Anville's map of 1743: cf. Note 33 above.

42 Map compiled by John Norris and reproduced, with some modifications, in Dalzell, A., The history of Dahomey, an inland kingdom of Africa (For the Author by Spilsbury, T., London, 1793).Google Scholar

43 de Barros, João, Asia de João de Barros, Dos feitos que os Portugueses fizeram no descobrimento e conquista dos mares e terras do Oriente, Vol. 1 (sixth edition: Divisão de Publicacões e Biblioteca, Agênda General das Colónias, Ministério das Colónias, República Portuguesa, Lisboa, 1945), pp. 124–8 [first published in 1552, in which edition the reference is to decada I, livro iii, cap. 4].Google Scholar

44 Talbot, , The peoples of Southern Nigeria, Vol. 1, p. 156.Google Scholar It will also be recalled that the Qba of Benin on his accession formerly received a brass staff, hat and cross from the Qni of Ife: de Barros, vide, loc. cit.Google Scholar A translation of the relevant passage is incorporated in Ryder, A. F. C., ‘A reconsideration of the Ife-Benin relationship’, Journal of African History Vol. 6, no. 1 (1965), 26–7, 33, and 36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

45 This particular myth was almost certainly borrowed ultimately from the cosmological lore of the Western Semites. For the concept of first Jerusalem, and subsequently Mecca, as an omphalos see Wensinck, A. J., ‘The ideas of the Western Semites concerning the navel of the earth’, Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, Afdeeling Letterkunde, new series, Vol. 17, no. 1 (1916).Google Scholar The specifically Muslim version, according to which Mecca had a prior existence of forty years before serving as the focus of creation, is narrated by, int al., AzraqI in his Akhbār Makkah (Wüstenfeld's edition, Leipzig, 1858), p. 1.Google Scholar

46 Fagg, Bernard E. B., ‘An outline of the Stone Age of the Plateau Minefield', Proceedings of the Third International West African Conference,Ibadan, 1949 (Lagos,1956), pp. 203–22;Google Scholar‘The Nok culture’, West African Review (1956), 1083–7;Google Scholar‘The Nok culture in prehistory’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, Vol. 1 (1959), 288–93;Google Scholar‘Radiocarbon dating of the Nok culture, Northern Nigeria’, Nature (1965), 205 and 212;Google ScholarWillett, Frank, Ife, chap. VIII.Google Scholar

47 Clark, J. Desmond, ‘Africa south of the Sahara’, in Braidwood, Robert J. and Willey, Gordon R., eds., Courses toward urban life (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1962), p. 21.Google Scholar

48 Braidwood and Willey, basing their conclusion on Clark's evaluation of the Nok culture, would seem to incline to assign that culture to the phase of Developed Village-Farming Efficiency: at least they discuss its implications under their sections III, IV, and V [Courses toward urban life, pp. 346 and 353:Google Scholar Clark's remarks are set out on p. 21 and incorporated in a chronological chart on pp. 12–13]. The concept of Village-Farming Efficiency is expounded by Braidwood, in ‘Levels in prehistory’, in Tax, Sol, ed., Evolution of man after Darwin, Vol. 2 (University of Chicago Press, 1960).Google Scholar

49 An egalitarian society is defined by Morton Fried as a society in which there are as many positions of prestige in any given age-sex grade as there are persons capable of filling them. In a rank society, on the other hand, limitations having nothing to do with sex, age or personal attributes are placed on access to prestige, so that there are fewer positions of valued status than individuals capable of achieving them. Neither in egalitarian nor in rank society is there developed either exploitative economic or genuine political power. In typical rank societies only two kinds of authority can be invoked, familial and sacred, and there is no access to the privileged use of force in support of either. Vide, Fried, Morton H., ‘On the evolution of social stratification and the state’, in Diamond, Stanley, ed., Culture in history; essays in honor of Paul Radin (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), pp. 713–31.Google Scholar

50 For the numerous variations in the form of these myths see, int. al., Ellis, A. B., The Yoruba-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa (London: Chapman & Hall, Ltd., 1894), pp. 89–92;Google ScholarFrobenius, Leo, Mythologie de l'Atlantide: le ‘Poseidon' de I‘Afrique noire, son culte chez les Yorouba du Benin (Paris: Payot, 1949), pp. 161–3;Google ScholarBolajildowu, E., Olódùmarè, God in Yoruba belief (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1962), pp. 19et seq;Google ScholarWyndham, John. ‘Yoruba folklore: the creation’, Man, Vol. 19 (1919), 58,Google Scholar and Myths of Ife (London: Erskine MacDonald, 1921);Google ScholarJohnson, , History of the Yorubas, chaps. I and II.Google Scholar For an interpretation of these myths see Lloyd, , ‘Yoruba myths: a sociologist's interpretation’.Google Scholar In more recent times Muslim Yoruba have generally accepted an Arabian provenance for their people, a version which was related to Hugh Clapperton by Sultan Bello of Sokoto [vide Denham, D. and Clapperton, H., Narrative of travels and discoveries (London: John Murray, 1826), p. 165]Google Scholar and repeated by Johnson, (History of the Yorubas, p. 3).Google Scholar Christian Yoruba, by contrast, often regard themselves as descendants of a lost tribe of Israel. Needless to say, these alien mythologies can be disregarded in the present discussion.

51 E.g., Lloyd, , ‘Yoruba myths’;Google ScholarBeier, H. Ulli, ‘Before Oduduwa’, Odu, Vol. 3 (1956), 25–32;Google ScholarWillett, , Ife, pp. 122–5.Google Scholar

52 Transformations on this pattern resulting from agricultural innovation have, in fact, been documented in recent times by, int. al., Linton, Ralph and Kardiner, Abram, ‘The change from dry to wet rice cultivation—Betsileo’, in The individual and his society (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939), pp. 282–90Google Scholar [Reprinted in Readings in social psychology (New York, 1952)];Google ScholarNakane, Chie, ‘Report on ethnological field work among primitive tribes in Tripura State’, Japanese Journal of Ethnology, Vol. 19 (1955), 58–60Google Scholar [In Japanese, with English summary]; and Sopher, David E., ‘The swidden/wet rice transition zone in the Chitta-gong hills’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 54, no. 1 (1964), 107–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53 Virtually nothing is known of the provenance of those cultural infusions which have frequently been postulated as instrumental in effecting the transformation of Yoruba society, but various authors (other than those who derived them by means of direct cultural or political conquest from Ancient Egypt or Arabia) have suggested severally the Meroitic empire (which collapsed early in the fourth century), or, in later centuries, Zaghawa or Christian Nubia.

54 I am aware that more precise formulations have from time to time been advanced by students of Yoruba culture (e.g. Biobaku, Saburi O., The Lugard Lectures (Federal Information Service, Lagos, 1955);Google ScholarJeffreys, M. D. W., ‘When was He Ife founded?’, The Nigerian Field, Vol. 23, no. 1 (1958), 21–3] but, however acceptable at the time when they were proposed, none is consonant with currently received views of Yoruba culture history.Google Scholar

55 The circumstance that the pottery traditions of Ife and Qyo were radically different serves to confirm that this shift in the locus of power was not accompanied by a mass migration of population: vide, for example, Willett, Frank, ‘Excavations at Old Oyo and Ife’, West Africa, No. 2153 (06 19, 1958), 675;Google Scholar‘Ife and its archaeology’, The Journal of African History, Vol. 1, no. 2 (1960), 244;Google Scholar‘Bronze and terracotta sculptures from Ita Yemoo, Ife’, The South African Archaeological Bulletin, Vol. 14, no. 56 (1960), 135–7;Google Scholar‘Investigations at Old Oyo, 1956–57, an interim report’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, Vol. 2 (1961), 59–77;Google ScholarFagg, William and Willett, , ‘Ancient Ife, an ethnographical summary’, Odù, no. 8 (1960), 29.Google Scholar

Recently A. F. C. Ryder has proposed that one way of reconciling certain information recorded by European travellers with the Edo tradition of their Ife origins would be to postulate a migration of the cult centre of Ife from a location somewhere in the Nupe-Igala area athwart the confluence of the Niger and the Benue to its present site at some time prior to the sixteenth century [‘A reconsideration of the Ife-Benin relationship’, pp. 36–7]. This is an attractive solution to an exceedingly complex problem, but it has not so far been corroborated by independent evidence.

56 Bradbury, R. E., ‘The historical uses of comparative ethnography with special reference to Benin and the Yoruba’, in Vansina, J., Mauny, R. and Thomas, L. V., The historian in tropical Africa. Studies presented and discussed at the Fourth International African Seminar at the University of Dakar, Senegal, 1961 (London, Ibadan, Accra: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute, 1964), pp. 145–64.Google Scholar Cf. also Robert G. Armstrong, ‘The use of linguistic and ethnographic data in the study of Idoma and Yoruba history’, ibid., 127–44.

57 Willett, , Ife, pp. 125–6.Google Scholar

58 Lloyd, Peter C., ‘Sacred kingship and government among the Yoruba’, Africa, Vol. 30, no. 3 (1960), 223;CrossRefGoogle ScholarBiobaku, , The Lugard Lectures, Lecture 6.Google Scholar

59 Johnson's assertion (History of the Yorubas, p. 197Google Scholar) that Nupe and Bariba were tributary to Qyo, although frequently repeated in subsequent works, cannot be confirmed and appears a priori unlikely.

60 Both Clapperton, Hugh [Journal of a second expedition into the interior of Africa, from the Bight of Benin to Soccatoo (London: John Murray, 1829)]CrossRefGoogle Scholar and the Lander brothers [Richard, and Lander, John, Journal of an expedition to explore the course and termination of the Niger (1832)]Google Scholar remarked on the number of settlements ‘destroyed by the Fellatahs’, during their journeys in 1825 and 1830 respectively. In 1849 the Rev. Bowen ‘counted the sites of eighteen desolated towns within a distance of sixty miles between Badagry and Abeokuta’, and added, ‘The whole of Yoruba country is full of depopulated towns …’. Adventures and missionary labours in several countries in the interior of Africa from 1849–1856 (Charleston: Southern Baptist Publication Society, 1857; second edition, London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1968), p. 114.Google ScholarStone, R. H. [In Africa's forest and jungle (London, 1900), p. 48]Google Scholar observed the ruins of eighteen ‘large towns’ within a distance of seventy miles. The dates of destruction of the majority of these settlements can only be inferred from circumstantial evidence, but in a few instances more precise information is available: e.g. Owu was overthrown in about 1825, Ijana in 1832, Iwawun in 1861, Isaga in 1862, Ijaye in 1862.

61 This notion of an ideal-type is very close to that which Arthur Spiethoff denoted by the term ‘real type’: vide ‘Pure theory and economic gestalt theory: ideal types and real types’, in Lane, F. C. and Riemersma, Jelle C., Enterprise and secular change (London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1953), pp. 444–63.Google Scholar

62 It is fortunate that Dr. Morton-Williams has devoted several extremely perceptive studies to the elucidation of aspects of Oyo social and political structure [cf. especially ‘The Yoruba Ogboni cult in Oyo’, Africa, Vol. 30 (1960), 362–74,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and ‘An outline of the cosmology and cult organization of the Oyo Yoruba’, Africa, Vol. 34 (1964), 243–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

63 The precise theological status of this dual existence is not entirely clear, but it is usually said that the oba ruled in the Ile Aiye, the House of the World (meaning the Yoruba oecumene, or perhaps more accurately, the habitabilis) while his orun or spirit double dwelt with Olorun, the Supreme God, in the heavens.

64 Peter Morton-Williams explicates these titles as follows: ‘World’ connotes all social activity; Ile, besides Earth, means also territory, and territory is equated with the people owning it; the last title refers to the status of the Alafln as a sacred king and religious head of the Yoruba, Oyo [‘The Yoruba kingdom of Oyo’, in Forde, Daryll and Kaberry, P. M., West African kingdoms in the nineteenth century (London: Oxford University Press for the Inter national African Institute, 1967), p. 53Google Scholar]. Lloyd has also provided a great deal of useful informa tion about the role of the oba generally in ‘Sacred kingship and government among the Yoruba’ [cf. Note 58 above] and specifically in the kingdoms of Ekiti, Oyo and Ijebu in ‘The traditional political system of the Yoruba’, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 10, (1954) 366–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Reprinted in Cohen, Ronald and Middleton, John, eds., Comparative political systems; studies in the politics of pre-industrial societies (New York: The Natural History Press for the American Museum of Natural History, 1967), pp. 269–92.Google Scholar

65 Ojo, G. J. Afolabi, Yoruba palaces. A study of afins of Yorubaland (London: University of London Press Ltd., 1966), p. 75.Google Scholar

66 Some traditions ascribe no less than 401 shrines to He Ife, but this is certainly a conven tional figure. In 1948 Kenneth Murray identified about 120, and only a handful have been brought to light since that time [cited by Fagg, and Willett, , ‘Ancient Ife’, p 23].Google Scholar

67 Ojo, , Yoruba palaces, p. 76.Google Scholar

68 The exception to this rule is Sagamu where, as the result of a process of synoecism involving thirteen discrete settlements in the second half of the nineteenth century, four crowned pbas rule simultaneously over separate quarters of the city.

69 The information in this paragraph is mainly from Ojo, , Yoruba palaces, chap. 2.Google Scholar

70 du Bois, Cora, Social forces in Southeast Asia (second printing, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959), p. 31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

71 There is a sketch showing the course of the walls of Ife in relation to present-day topography in Willett, Frank, ‘Ife and its archaeology’, p. 247.Google Scholar Cf. also the same author's Ife in the history of West African sculpture, chap. VII,Google Scholar‘Excavations at Old Oyo and Ife’, and ‘Investiga tions at Old Oyo, 1956–57’; and Fagg and Willett, ‘Ancient Ife’.Google Scholar

72 Clapperton, , Journal of a second expedition, p. 58.Google Scholar

73 Op. cit., pp. 58–9.Google Scholar

74 Bowen, , Adventures and missionary labours, pp. 295–6.Google Scholar The Landers were scarcely more complimentary: ‘Generally speaking, the description of one town in Yarriba would answer for the whole … the form of the houses and squares is everywhere the same; irregular and badly built clay walls, ragged-looking thatched roofs, and floors of mud polished with cow-dung, form the habitations of the chief part of the natives of Yarriba, compared to most of which a common English barn is a palace. The only difference between the residence of a chief and those of his subjects, lies in the number and not in the superiority of his court-yards … [Journal of an expedition, Vol. 1, p. 156].Google Scholar

75 There is a brief survey of these ceremonial complexes in regions of both primary and secondary urban generation in Wheatley, The pivot of the four quarters, chap. III.Google Scholar

76 Bellah, Robert N., ‘Religious evolution’, American Sociological Review, Vol. 29, no. 3 (1964), 358–73,CrossRefGoogle Scholar especially 361–4. Cf. 363: ‘Primitive religious action is characterized by identification, “participation”, acting out. Just as the primitive symbol system is myth parexcellence, so primitive religious action is ritual par excellence.’

77 Morton-Williams, , ‘An outline of the cosmology and cult organization of the Oyo Yoruba’, esp. p. 245.Google Scholar Cf. also Idowu, , Olóùmaré, passim.Google Scholar

78 Vide Hubert, Henri and Mauss, Marcel, ‘Essai sur la nature et la fonction du sacrifice’, L'Année Sociologique, Vol. 2 (1897-1898), 29–138.Google Scholar

79 E.g. Fairservis, Walter, ‘The Harappan civilization—new evidence and more theory’, American Museum Novitates, No. 2055 (1961), pp. 29 and 32;Google ScholarAdams, , The evolution of urban society, pp. 122et seq.Google Scholar

80 Bellah, , ‘Religious evolution’, p. 365.Google Scholar

81 Durkheim, Emile, The elementary forms of the religious life (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1947).Google Scholar

82 For an attempt to extend this terminology to all regions of nuclear urbanism see Steward, Julian, ed., Irrigation Civilizations: a comparative study: A symposium on method and result in cross-cultural regularities. Social Science Monographs I, Social Science Section, Department of Cultural Affairs of the Pan American Union (Washington, D.C., 1955). In the Central Andean Co-tradition the equally expressive term ‘Expansionist’ has been applied to this phase of urban development.Google Scholar

83 Cf. Morton-Williams, , ‘The Yoruba Ogboni cult in Oyo’, p. 364:Google Scholar ‘The Ogboni is thought of by the Yoruba generally as supporting the power of the Alafin’, in confirmation of which the author quotes the remark of the Apena, one of the leading officials of the cult, to the effect that: ‘Every Oba must have Ogboni so that people may fear him.’

84 Goddard, , ‘Town-farm relationship in Yorubaland’, p. 28.Google Scholar

85 At least it is true of the agnatic lineages of the northern Yoruba, including those of Oyo where Goddard worked, but a different model would be required to elucidate urban-rural relationships among the cognatic descent groups of Ijebu and Ondo. Cf. p. 414 below.

86 This term was coined by Mitchell, J. Clyde [‘Social change and the new towns of Bantu Africa’, in Balandier, G., ed., Social implications of technological change (Paris: International Social Science Council, 1962), p. 128;Google Scholar cf. also ‘Theoretical orientations in African urban studies’, in Banton, Michael, ed., The social anthropology of complex societies (London: Tavistock Publications, 1966), p. 44],Google Scholar and is analogous to what P. Mayer called an alternation model of change [‘Migrancy and the study of Africans in town,’ American Anthropologist, Vol. 64 (1962), 579]. Mitchell's ‘situational change’ refers to the modifications in behaviour which follow on participation in different social systems.Google Scholar

87 For comments on this theme see Eisenstadt, S. N., ‘Social change, differentiation and evolution’, American Sociological Review, Vol. 29 (1964), 375–86, but especially 379–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

88 The transformation has been variously categorized as, int. al., from Concordia to Justitia (Lucretius and the Epicureans),Google Scholar from Status to Contract (SirMaine, Henry), from Societas to CivitasGoogle Scholar(Morgan, Lewis Henry), and from Gemeinschaft to GesellschaftGoogle Scholar (Tonnies, Ferdinand) but, whatever the conceptualization of the transition, the replacement of kin-based by politized, spatially organized groups was a central theme.Google Scholar

89 Adams, , The evolution of urban society, chap. 3.Google Scholar

90 Kirchhoff, Paul, ‘The principles of clanship in human society’, Davidson Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 1 (1955), 1–10:Google Scholar reprinted in Fried, Morton, Readings in Anthropology, Vol. 2 (1959), 259–70.Google Scholar

91 Eric Wolf's summary, from Sons of the Shaking Earth (Chicago: Phoenix Book No. 90, University of Chicago Press, 1962), p. 136.Google Scholar

92 Adams, , The evolution of urban society, p. 86.Google Scholar An English summary of Igor M. Diakonoff's studies on corporate landholding groups is available in ‘Sale of land in pre-Sargonic Sumer’, Papers presented by the Soviet Delegation at the XXIII International Congress of Orientalists, Assyriology Section (Moscow: Publishing House of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Science, 1954).Google Scholar

93 For an introduction to this topic see Monzón, Arturo, El Calpulli en la organización social de los Tenochca (México, D. F.: Institute de Historia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, 1949),Google Scholar and Kirchhoff, , ‘The principles of clanship in human society’.Google Scholar There are discussions of lineages among the Maya in Roys, Ralph L., The Indian background of colonial Yucatdn, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication No. 548 (Washington, D.C., 1943);Google ScholarCarrasco, Pedro, Kinship and territorial groups in Pre-Spanish Guatemala (Paper read at the Fifty-seventh Annual Meeting of the Association of American Anthropologists, Washington, D.C., 1958);Google ScholarLounsbury, Floyd G., A componential analysis of the 16th century Yucatec Maya kinship terminologyGoogle Scholar (undated MS.). Not without value in this connection is Villa Rojas's, Alfonso ‘Barrios y calpules en las Comunidades Tzeltales y Tzotziles del México actuel’, Actas del XXXV Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, Vol. 1 (1964), 321–34.Google Scholar

94 Adams, , The evolution of urban society, p. 119.Google Scholar

95 Wheatley, , The pivot of the four quarters, chap. I.Google Scholar

96 Op. cit., chap. IV.Google Scholar

97 For statements of these differences see Lloyd, Peter C., ‘The Yoruba town today’, pp. 45–7,Google Scholar‘The Yoruba lineage’, Africa, Vol. 25, no. 3 (1955), 235–51,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Yoruba land law, pp. 33–5 and 53–8.Google Scholar The differences between these two types of kin organization are not every where quite so distinct in practice as the brief statement above may seem to imply and the reader is referred for further information on one manifestation of the northern system to Schwab, William B., ‘Kinship and lineage among the Yoruba’, Africa, Vol. 25, no. 4 (1955), 352–74,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and for a discussion of the situation in one of the southern territories to Lloyd, in Bradbury, R. E., The Benin kingdom and the Edo-speaking peoples of South-Western Nigeria. With a section on the Itsekiri. The Ethnographic Survey of Africa, Western Africa, Part XIII (London: International African Institute, 1957), pp. 172–205.Google Scholar

98 These contrasted settlement hierarchies are depicted in diagrammatic form in Lloyd, , Yoruba land law, p. 56.Google Scholar

99 Cf. Lloyd, , ‘The political system of the Yoruba’ in Comparative political systems, pp. 284–8,Google Scholar and Yoruba land law, pp. 41–3, 54, 105–9, and 146–50;Google ScholarBradbury, , ‘The historical uses of comparative ethnography’, p. 153.Google Scholar

100 This structural opposition within the Oyo government is explored and evaluated in three papers by Morton-Williams, all cited previously: ‘The Yoruba Ogboni cult in Oyo’, esp. pp. 363–7,Google Scholar‘An outline of the cosmology and cult organization of the Oyo Yoruba’, esp. pp. 251–9,Google Scholar and ‘The Yoruba kingdom of Oyo’ esp. pp. 50–66.Google Scholar

101 Morton-Williams, , ‘The Yoruba kingdom of Oyo’, p. 62.Google Scholar In Ado, and perhaps in some other eastern Yoruba cities, no member of the royal lineage might hold any chieftaincy title which conferred political power, though he might accept lesser titles which incurred admini strative duties. ‘Poor and without political rights, the status of the royal lineage is debased’: writes Lloyd, ‘Sacred kingship and government among the Yoruba’, p. 235. Cf. also the same author's ‘The traditional political system of the Yoruba’, p. 283, where it is stated that members of the royal lineages also failed to play any significant part in government in Iwo, Ekiti, or Ijebu.

102 Cf. Weber, Max, Staatssoziologie (Berlin: Duncker and Humblot, 1956).Google Scholar For a com pendious exposition in English of the nature of patrimonial domain consult Bendix, Reinhard, Max Weber. An intellectual portrait (Garden City: Doubleday Anchor Book A281, 1962), pp. 334–60.Google Scholar For the ebi system of government see Akinjogbin, I. A., ‘The Oyo empire in the eighteenth century—a reassessment’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, Vol. 3, no. 3 (1966), 451:Google Scholar e.g. ‘All these [Yoruba] kingdoms believed in and practised the Ebi system of government. Under this system, a kingdom was regarded as a larger version of the family. …’

103 For discussions of the uncertain etymology of this name (which is often vocalized in Oyo itself as Oyo Misi or even Omesi) see Morton-Williams, , ‘The Yoruba Ogboni cult in Oyo’, p. 364,Google Scholar note 1, and ‘The Yoruba kingdom of Oyo’, p. 67, note 7.Google Scholar

104 Vide Wheatley, , The pivot of the four quarters, chap. 3.Google Scholar

103 In most other cults the situation was quite different, with the high priests residing in wards presided over by members of the Oyo Mesi to whom they might be obliged to divulge their activities.

106 Morton-Williams, , ‘An outline of the cosmology and cult organization of the Oyo Yoruba’, pp. 252–3.Google Scholar The Qyo political structure is summarized diagrammatically by Morton-Williams in ‘The Yoruba Ogboni cult in Oyo’, p. 363Google Scholar and ‘The Yoruba kingdom of Oyo’, p. 52.Google Scholar

107 Cf. for example, on the Egbado and Egba cities, Morton-Williams, , ‘The Yoruba Ogboni cult in Oyo’, p. 367;Google ScholarBiobaku, Saimri O., The Egba and their neighbours, 1842–1872 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1957),Google Scholar and ‘An historical sketch of the Egba traditional authorities’, Africa, Vol. 22, no. 1 (1952), 35–49;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and on Kabba, Ado and Ijebu see Lloyd, ‘The political system of the Yoruba’.Google Scholar

108 Adams, , The evolution of urban society, chap. III.Google Scholar

109 Adams, , op. cit., chap. III;Google ScholarWolf, , Sons of the Shaking Earth, chap. VII;Google ScholarMonzon, Arturo, El Calpulli en la organización social de los Tenochca (México, D.F.: Instituto de Historia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1949);Google ScholarKatz, Friedrich, Die Sozialōkonomischen Verhältnisse bei den Azteken im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert. Etnographisch-Archaeologische Forschungen, Vol. 3, pt. 2 (Berlin, 1956).Google Scholar

110 Coe, Michael, ‘A model of ancient community structure in the Maya lowlands’, South western Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 21, no. 2 (1965), 97–114;CrossRefGoogle ScholarCancian, Frank, ‘Some aspects of the social and religious organization of a Maya society’, Adas del XXXV Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, Vol. 1 (1964), 335–43;Google ScholarVogt, Evon Z., ‘Some aspects of Zinacantan settlement patterns and ceremonial organization’, Estudios de Cultura Maya, Vol. 1 (1961), 131–45;Google ScholarWilley, Gordon R., ‘The structure of ancient Mayan society: evidence from the southern lowlands’, American Anthropologist, Vol. 58 (1956), 777–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

111 Wheatley, , The pivot of the four quarters, chap. I;Google ScholarChang, Kwang-chih, ‘Some dualistic phenomena in Shang society’, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 24, no. 1 (1964), 45–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

112 The earliest, and in some respects still the most complete, discussion of the role of corporate descent groups in the cities of ancient Greece and Rome is that of Muma Denis Fustel de Coulanges who, as long ago as 1864, proposed that the cities of the ancient world had taken their origins in the designation of territories as sanctuaries common to diverse tribes, and that citizenship had derived from a shared adherence to the gods of these sanctuaries [La cité antique, Librairie Hachette, Paris: English translation under the title The ancient city (New York: Doubleday Anchor Book No. A76, N.D.)].Google Scholar

113 Cf. Lloyd, Peter, ‘Craft organization in Yoruba towns’, Africa, Vol. 23, no. 1 (1953), 30–44;CrossRefGoogle Scholar also Bray, Jennifer M., ‘The craft structure of a traditional Yoruba town-the example of weaving in Iseyin, Nigeria’, Aspects of Central Place Theory and the city in developing countries(The Institute of British Geographers Study Group in Urban Geography: Durham Conference,September, 1967), no pagination [mimeo.].Google Scholar

114 Cf. int. al., Burton, Richard F., Abeokuta and the Camaroons Mountains. An exploration, Vol. 1 (Tinsley Bros., London, 1863), p. 80;Google ScholarLander, , Journal, Vol. 1, pp. 179–81;Google ScholarBowen, , Adventures, pp. 296–7.Google Scholar

115 Lander, , Journal, Vol. 1, pp. 109–10.Google Scholar Cf. also Clapperton's remark [Journal of a second expedition, p. 21Google Scholar]: ‘The king of Eyeo's [Qyp] wives are to be found in every place trading for him….’ Recently I. A. Akinjogbin has re-interpreted the political history of the Qyo empire during the eighteenth century in terms of the need to foster such long-distance trade: ‘The Oyo empire in the eighteenth century—a reassessment’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, Vol. 3 (1966), 449–60.Google Scholar

116 Bascom, , ‘Urbanization among the Yoruba’, p. 449.Google Scholar

117 Ojo, , Yoruba palaces, chap. 7.Google Scholar

118 Johnson, , The history of the Yorubas, p. 50.Google Scholar

119 The interpretation of such evidence as is available is not made easier by the fact that students of economic anthropology and of so-called ‘primitive economies’ are not completely in agreement among themselves as to the precise nature of the processes involved in contemporary African exchange patterns. Essentially the debate is between those who believe that the difference between the representative contemporary Western-style market and primitive subsistence exchange is one of degree and those who believe it is one of kind. The classic statement of the latter view is that expounded by Polanyi, Karl, Arensberg, Conrad M. and Pearson, Harry W., eds., in Trade and market in the early empires (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1957);Google Scholar the most formidable critique of this view is that mounted by Cook, Scott, ‘The obsolete “anti-market” mentality: a critique of the substantive approach to economic anthropology’, American Anthropologist, Vol. 68 (1966), 323–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar This last incorporates a bibliography of the works of leading proponents of both sides of the argument.