Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T14:51:29.808Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Is Elegance Proof? Structuralism and African History1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Jan Vansina
Jan Vansina*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Despite its very visible career in anthropology and folklore, structuralism has been little used by historians of precolonial Africa. Only Ronald Atkinson has applied the method of Lévi-Strauss in the Edmund Leach variant, although a number of historians have attempted to elucidate symbolic meanings by other means. Rather surprisingly as well, given the two decades or so that have elapsed since Lévi-Strauss developed its axioms and analysis, no historian of Africa has ventured to discuss the validity of structuralism for coping with the interpretation of myths of origin or other oral traditions, except in passing. The topic has surfaced only here and there in the never-ending debate about traditions as expressions of the present, or of the past, or of both. Given the influence of structuralism elsewhere, though, it is due time that the approach be discussed for its own sake.

The reticence to do so became especially incongruous when a senior structuralist, Luc de Heusch, began to cover ground that historians had recently trod. In his Le roi ivre he discussed at length myths in the kingdoms of southeastern Zaire and adjacent areas. This did prompt publication of two articles about his Luba and Lunda interpretations, but no general assessment of this work in toto. Jeffrey Hoover faulted de Heusch's Lunda material but still praised his “provocative ideas” and the method, “which bore some good fruit,” while Thomas Reefe prefaced his critique of Luba material by calling the book “stimulating” and sidestepped the issue by noting that “no matter what the final assessment of this book will be by historians…” Others were equally bland in their references to this work, while still refuting de Heusch on specifics. Everyone felt, it seems, that a general assessment was beyond or outside their competence. Yet a general critique would have been of use for de Heusch is one of the oldest and most experienced structuralists in anthropology, perhaps the first disciple of Lévi-Strauss. Trained in Paris, he imbibed the approaches of the Griaule school, the protostructuralism of Georges Dumézil, and the early teaching of the master himself. Of all structuralists he remains the most faithful to the method of Lévi-Strauss.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 10 , 1983 , pp. 307 - 348
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1983

Footnotes

1.

A review of Luc de Heusch, Rois nés d'un coeur de vache (Paris, 1982).

References

Notes

2. Atkinson, , “The Traditions of the Early Kings of Buganda: Myth, History and Structural Analysis,” HA, 2 (1975), 17–58.Google Scholar See also various contributions in Miller, J.C., ed., The African Past Speaks (Folkestone, 1980).Google Scholar

3. (Paris, 1972). A translation has just been published: The Drunken King (Bloomington, 1982).Google Scholar Citations are to this edition.

4. Hoover, J.J., “Mythe et remous historique: A Lunda Response to De Heusch,” HA, 5 (1978), 71Google Scholar; Reefe, T.Q., “Traditions of Genesis and the Luba Diaspora,” HA, 4 (1977), 184.Google Scholar

5. E.g., Yoder, John, “The Historical Study of a Kanyok Genesis Myth: The Tale of Citend a Mfumu” in Miller, , The African Past Speaks, 82Google Scholar; Robert Schecter, “A Propos the Drunken King: Cosmology and History” in ibid., 108-13; and Randall M. Packard, “The Study of Historical Process in African Traditions of Genesis: The Bashu Myth of Muhiyi” in ibid., 157.

6. Willis, R.G., On Historical Reconstruction from Oral-Traditional Sources: A Structuralist Approach (Evanston, 1976)Google Scholar

7. idem., A State in the Making: Myth, History, and Social Transformation in Pre-Colonial Ufipa (Bloomington, 1981), 37.

8. I am much loath to undertake this; we have been friends for thirty years. Yet exercises of the kind of Rois nés leads to great waste of intellectual effort. This constrains me to undertake this critique, not so much of Rois nés but of the structuralist ‘method’ in general.

9. Cornet, René, Art royal kuba (Milan, 1982), 29, 308–309.Google Scholar Cf. Vansina, , Geschiedenis van de Kuba (Tervuren, 1962), 118-19, 291.Google Scholar

10. Nathhorst, Bertel, Formal or Structural Studies of Traditional Tales; the Usefulness of Some Methodological Proposals Advanced by Vladimir Propp, Alan Bundes, Claude Lévi-Strauss and Edmund Leach (Stockholm, 1969).Google Scholar

11. Esp. Thomas, L.L., Kronenfeld, J.Z., and Kronenfeld, D.B., “Asdiwal Crumbles: A Critique of Lévi-Straussian Myth Analysis,” American Ethnologist, 13 (1976), 147–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. Africanist anthropologists who aspire to be structuralists follow either Lévi-Strauss or Leach. T.O. Beidelman is not a strict structuralist because of his care to document his ethnographic data and his different goals. Structuralism must not be confused with all symbolic anthropology.

13. Lieury, Alain, La mémoire: résultats et theories (Brussels, 1975), 48–52.Google Scholar Besides oppositions, similarities, super-ordination or subordination, and co-ocurrence are the mental mechanisms of association.

14. The classic case is that of the Dogon. Griaule, Marcel, Dieu d'eau (Paris, 1948)Google Scholar was based entirely on the views of Ogotemelli but we will never know how far these have since become standard among the Dogon, perhaps driving out others; nor exactly to what extent earlier studies by the Griaule team were based on cosmological conceptions of other informants.

15. Willis, R.W., “The Literalist Fallacy and the Problem of Oral Tradition,” Social Analysis, 2 (1980), 28–33.Google Scholar Willis badly confuses symbolic analysis with structural analysis.

16. Torday, Emil and Joyce, M.A., Notes ethnographiques sur les peuples communément appelés Bakuba, ainsi que sur les peuplades apparentées-Les Bushongo (Brussels, 1910), 20.Google ScholarVansina, , Geschiedenis, 81.Google Scholar Fifteen other variants are known.

17. Hulstaert, G., “Le Dieu des Mongo,” Anthropos, 219-20, 223-24, 227.Google Scholar Note that the Yongo are a Mbole subgroup.

18. Vansina, , The Children of Woot (Madison, 1978), 29–34.Google Scholar

19. D'Hertefelt, Marcel and Coupez, André, La royauté sacrée de l'ancien Rwanda (Tervuren, 1964).Google Scholar

20. Discussed in his Le Rwanda et la civilisation interaaustre (Brussels, 1966), 158–363passim.Google Scholar

21. Dumézil, , Les dieux souverains des indo-européens (Paris, 1977), 252.Google Scholar

22. Coupez, André and Kamanzi, Th., Récits historiques rwanda dans la version de C. Gakaníisha (Tervuren, 1962)Google Scholar; Pages, Albert, Un royaume hamite au centre de l'Afrique (Brussels, 1933)Google Scholar; Smith, Pierre, Le récit populaire au Rwanda (Paris, 1975).Google Scholar

23. Kagame, Alexis, Inganni Karinga I (2d. ed.: Kabgayi, , 1959).Google Scholar

24. Vansina, , Ibitéekerezo (Center for Research Libraries, Chicago), six reels, Cat. No. MF-2739.Google Scholar

25. Coupez, Kamanzi, Littérature de cour au Rwanda (Oxford, 1970).Google Scholar The volume is cited in his bibliography, however.

26. Kagame, , La notion de génération appliquée à la généalogie dynastique et à l'histoire du Rwanda des Xè-XIè siècles à nos jours (Brussels, 1959), 14-27, 80–86Google Scholar, discusses this source, called ubuaurabwenge, (“Smithing intelligence”). His version is apparently the only one recorded. He fully published it in his Inganni Karinga, 93-99, but without commentary as to the circumstances of dictation or his actual source.

27. The names are best explained by Smith, P., “La forge de l'intelligence,” Homme, 10 (1970), 11–15.Google Scholar

28. Vansina, , La légende du passé: traditions orales du Burundi (Tervuren, 1972), 73.Google Scholar See also ibid., 55-68, 102 for a very general motif called fanany. Cf. Baumann, Hermann, Die Völker Afrikas und ihre Traditionellen Kulturen (Wiesbaden, 1975), 1: 625–26.Google Scholar

29. Smith, , Récit populaire, 52–53Google Scholar; Lestrade, A., Ilotes d'ethno¬graphie du Rwanda (Rervuren, 1972), 61–67.Google Scholar

30. A point made by Hoover, “Mythe,” 67. Thus “sun” as opposed to “rain” or “clouds” is as valid as sun opposed to “moon” and hence neither is a strictly logical deduction from “sun,” being neither sufficient nor necessary.

31. “Cow” in the sense of a head of cattle without gender indication. Cf. Coupez, /Kamanzi, , Récits historiques, 60.Google Scholar

32. Ibid., 98-99.

33. Smith, , “Forge,” 17.Google Scholar

34. Coupez, /Kamanzi, , Récits historiques, 102–03, lines 79ff.Google Scholar

35. Ibid., 62-63, lines 11ff.

36. Smith, , Récit populaire, 114ff.Google Scholar

37. Nathhorst, , Formai or Structural Studies, 58–59.Google Scholar

38. Smith, , “Forge,” 15.Google Scholar

39. Dumézil, , Mitra-Varuna (Paris, 1948), esp. 13–16.Google Scholar Cf. Dumézil, , Les dieux souverains, 9–15.Google Scholar

40. Baumann, , Schöpfung und Urzeit des Menschen im Mythus der Afrikanischen Völker (2d. ed.: Berlin, 1936) 2: 256–260.Google Scholar Although much more is known today, some west African cases were known even then.

41. Brown, Peter, Cult of the Saints (Chicago, 1981), 81.Google Scholar

42. Newbury, David, “The Clans of Rwanda: An Historical Hypothesis,” Africa, 50 (1980), 389–403CrossRefGoogle Scholar, shows how damaging this can be and how unrealistic it is.

43. E.g., Huffman, T.N., “Archaeology and Ethnohistory of the African Iron Age,” Annual Review of Anthropology, 11 (1982), 133–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44. Smith, , “Forge,” 6Google Scholar, following Kagame, , Notion, 87Google Scholar; Vansina, , L'évolution du royaume rwanda dès origines à 1900 (Brussels, 1962), 25.Google Scholar

45. Rennie, J.K., “The Pre-Colonial History of Rwanda: A Reinterpretation,” Transafrican Journal of History, 2 (1972), 11–53Google Scholar; Van Noten, Francis, Les tombes du roi Cyirima Rugugira et de la reine mère Nyirayuhi Kangogera (Tervuren, 1972).Google Scholar

46. Miller, , “Listening for the African Past” in Miller, , African Fast Speaks, 24–34.Google Scholar

47. Layton, Robert L., The Anthropology of Art (New York, 1981), 4–5.Google Scholar

48. Junod, Henri A., Moeurs et coutumes des Bantous: la vie d'une tribu sud-africaine (Paris, 1936).Google Scholar

49. Baumann, , Schöpfung und Urzeit, 268–72Google Scholar gives the Africa-wide distribution of the chameleon as bringer of death, which is the theme (408-09) of de Heusch, who limits himself to Rwanda, Thonga, Venda, and Zulu (228).

50. Junod, , Moeurs, 85–86.Google Scholar The last line of the French translation was detached in error from the preceding text, explaining the confusion of de Heusch. But the original Thonga had no such error and even a cursory comparison of original and translation shows it.

51. Stayt, Hugh A., The Bavenda (London, 1968).Google Scholar

52. Beach, David N., The Shona and Zimbabwe (London, 1980), 107–08.Google Scholar

53. Junod, , Moeurs, 74.Google Scholar

54. Wagner, R., “Zoutpansberg: The Dynamics of a Hunting Frontier, 1848-67” in Marks, Shula and Atmore, Anthony, eds., Economy and Society in Pre-Industrial South Africa (London, 1980), 335–36.Google Scholar The initiation rituals were then very new among the Venda.

55. Baumann, , Völker Afrikas, 596.Google Scholar

56. Jadin, Louis, L'ancien Congo et l'Angola, 1639-1655 (2 vols.: Brussels, 1975), 2: 1151-65, esp. 1152.Google Scholar

57. Ibid., 1164. A second account by Bonaventura d'Alessano is found on 1172 (Original in Brásio, A., Monumenta Missionaria Africana (Lisbon, 1965), 10: 395–400.Google Scholar

58. In Brásio, , Monumenta, 4: 399Google Scholar; Bal, Willy, Description du royaume de Congo et des Contrées envaronantes (Louvain, 1965), 31, 34.Google Scholar

59. de Sousberghe, Luc, L'art Pende (Brussels, 1959), 6–7.Google Scholar

60. Papstein, Robert J., “The Upper Zembezi: A History of the Luvale People, 1000-1900,” (Ph.D., UCLA, 1978), 174–79.Google Scholar

61. Guthrie, Malcolm, Comparative Bantu (Farnham, 1970), 3: 265Google Scholar, CS 1002 (“letter”), 1003 (“skin”), 1004 (“strap”).

62. Van Wing, Joseph, Penders, C., Le plus ancien dictionnaire bantu (Louvain, 1928), 206.Google Scholar

63. Dumézil, , Les dieux souverains, 9–15Google Scholar, for his own estimate of his work.

64. (Brussels, 1966).

65. Schebesta, Paul, “Die Zimbabwe-Kultur in Afrika,” Anthropos, 21 (1926), 484–545.Google Scholar De Heusch rejects Kulturkreislehre in general, but not in this instance.

66. Bennett, Patrick and Sterk, Jan, “South Central Niger-Congo: A Reclassification,” Studies in African Linguistics, 8 (1977), 241–73Google Scholar and Williamson, Kay, “The Benue-Congo Languages and Ijo,” Current Trends in Linguistics, 7 (1971), 245–306.Google Scholar

67. Erman, Adolf, Die Religion der Aegypter (Berlin, 1934), 62, 90Google Scholar (Atum spit the Gods Shu and Tefnet. “To spit” is linked to the folk etymology for Shu). See also Edmond Drioton and Vandier, Jacques, L'Egypte (Paris, 1952), 81Google Scholar, and Vandier, , La religion égyptienne (Paris, 1949), 33.Google Scholar All authors make clear that this is but one cosmology, backed by the priests of Heliopolis. It was not the oldest one reported.

68. Baumann, , Schöpfung und Urzeit, 190.Google Scholar

69. Poignant, Roslyn, Oceanic Mythology (London, 1967), 29.Google Scholar

70. Baumann, , Schöpfung und Urzeit, 186, 189.Google Scholar

71. The importance of twins in Africa need not be stressed. Twins as a means to propagate the human race occur elsewhere in Africa, as among the Fang or the Ziba.

72. Haberland, Eike, ed., Leo Frobenius, 1873-1973 (Wiesbaden, 1973), 192–221.Google Scholar The originals are from Frobenius, Erythräa: Länder und Zeiten des heiligen Königsmordes (Berlin, 1931), 114–244.Google Scholar The data come from his 1928/1930 trip. Anyone using Frobenius is well-advised to check his published texts against his own notebooks, preserved at the Institute in Frankfort that bears his name.

73. Beach, Shona and Zimbabwe.

74. Haberland, , Leo Frobenius, 209–11.Google Scholar

75. Vansina, , “The History of God Among the Kuba,” Africa [Rome], 38 (1983).Google Scholar

76. Among the iconographie ancestors of St. George and the Dragon must be reckoned a fourth-century relief showing Horus killing a crocodile, perhaps the former god Sebk. See du Bourguet, Pierre, L'art copte (Paris, 1968), 78.Google Scholar And who does not know about dragons in China where they represent the water? See de Visser, Marlmus W., The Dragon in China and Japan (Amsterdam, 1913). Passim.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

77. E.g., Bartlett, Frederic C., Remembering (Cambridge, 1964)Google Scholar; Edelman, G.M., “Through A Computer Darkly: Group Selection and Higher Brain Function,” Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 36 (1982), 20–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

78. De Heusch refers here to Children of Woot, 322n1.

79. Vansina, , Children of Woot, 31, 45.Google Scholar

80. For the argument see Vansina, “History of God.”

81. Ibid.

82. Hulstaert, , Dieu des Mongo, 219, 223.Google Scholar

83. Ibid., 228.

84. Ibid., 227.